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Letters From 
My Priend, The tonight. 



Published by 



H. C. Hensel, 



327 DEARBORN STREET, 



CHICAGO, ILL. 



Copyrighted. 1909, 

by 

H. C. Hensel, 

327 Dearborn Street, 

. Chicago, 111. 



LIBRARY of CONGRESSi 
Two Cooies Received 
JUN 19 )«USi 

•tLASS /^ AAc. No 



FOREWORD. 

It has been amply demonstrated that the assembling of a party 
of patriots and the adoption of a constitution does not form a perfect 
system of government. The constitution may be ever so carefully 
considered, yet the first thing necessary under it is the passing of 
laws enforcing its provisions, qualifying or exaggerating its phrases. 
A vast system of courts is maintained in an effort to make its broad 
terms fit the varied and intricate interests of humanity. It is 
acknowledged that a republic and constitutional government is the 
best that can be secured in a world where selfishness and greed at 
least have an equal chance with the better qualities of mankind, but 
sometimes we are heart-sick at the evasion of proper regulation, 
the contempt for law and order, the trampling upon the rights of 
the weaker by the very fact of the law's imperfections. Sometimes 
we wish there were a good king or a brave Knight going about 
correcting these evils that a cold, inanimate force called law is not 
able to remedy. Sometimes we wish there were a higher law that 
would consider nothing but justice and equity. It is thoughts like 
these that started the Knight of the Twentieth Century upon his 
mission. Whether we approve of all his acts or not, we agree with 
his reasoning and applaud his good intentions. 



Knight of the Twentieth Century. 

The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
jienter, dreaming of the need of a muscular Christianity that would 
go about the world pimishing meanness and rewarding virtu'3. Fall- 
ing hetr to a sit all fortune, his dream was made real. 



A MERRY GO ROUND. 

One of the most often recurring dreams of the days when I 
jrashed the plane, an exercise that is peculiarly prolific in dreams of 
rather a fantastic character, was the punishment that ought to be 
meted out to the automobile maniacs who have become so unbalanced 
by the craze for speed as to have hecome a public menace — and their 
name is legion. There is something about the swift motion of the 
automobile that affects the nerves to demand more and more speed, 
and acquiescence in the feeling brings a speed that paralyzes the 
reasoning faculties of the brain and leaves it absolutely dominated 
by the mad speed impulse. To nervous temperaments of a certain 
daring character the physical effect of the rush through the air 
stimulates and exhiliarates the diseased nerves, and as is usual with 
stimulants, incieased activity in one direction overshadows or annuls 
1 he activity of the other i)arts of the brain, and the result is that 
the diseased nerves are in full control of the mind and body during 
the temporary period of speed drunkenness. I own an automobile 
und enjoy riding in it and have felt the speed imjiulse a thousand 
times, so am not inclined to unreasonably condemn those who can- 
rot resist an impulse that with thos3 who have healthy and steady 
nervts is sometimes almost irresistible. Bat, like drunkenness, this 
mania should be controlled by infiuences outside the individual. 
We cannot prevent high-tension men from owning automobiles. 
Tlie best we can ao is to i^unish when abase is made of them. The 
laws are inadequate, and cannot well be made more severe because 
oppression by la.v wjald sarely become common, and that is 



2 A MERRY GO ROUND. 

even worse than the speed craz3. The small fines that are now 
imposed are bat a joke to the rich men who are the worst offenders. 
The occasional accident only seems to stimulate the diseased nerves 
t(^ greater risks — vvhen the acoidents happen to other peoplf. At 
the same time, it would be impracticable to kill or maim all these 
sick men. What could be done has puzzled me not a little An 
example ought to ba made that will be carried in mind by every 
antomubilist as possible to happen to him, one that would temper 
the spaed impulse at the critical moiidnt without baing toj severe 
a paaishment to maet the approval of public opinion. 

I had to do a quick acrobatic stunt the other day to avoid being 
run do A'n by one of these fiends, and whether the action or subse- 
quent anger stira ilated the brain, the proper punishrawnt for these 
men flashed into mind, and I soon set about arranging for it. I 
recognized the two men in thn automobile as a lich man who had • 
paid and laughed at numerous fines for speeding, who had killal an 
elderly woman with his machine but the incident having had no 
se'-ious personal results except a moderate cash outlay, had only 
t^eemed to make him more reckless. The chauffeur who was riding 
with hiin had a similar record, the chief difference being that his 
viccim was a little boy who would never walk again without 
crutches, this incident costing his employer a pretty sum but 
becretly resulted in a raising of his own wages. 

I happened to know that it was the custom of this man to drive 
his au:omobile at high speed from the city to a suburban home pa.st 
a farm owned by a friend of mine and where other houses were not 
nearer than a mile. This friend also has a farm adjoining and I 
happened to know the farm I had in mind had no tenant this year, 
tlie work being done by hired men who lived at the house on the 
main farm, about a mile away. 

I drove out to this farm with the vacant building to see what 
arrangements could be made to punish these men in a Ltting mmner. 
Returning to the city I purchased the longest 2x12 board that I could 
find at the lumber yard, with some other necessaries, and returned 
to the farm with a little biid singing in my heart a song that 
sounded suspiciously like "They'll get it plenty. They'll get it 
plenty." 

AVith the plank and a post I constructed a beautiful "flying 
dutchman" with ball-bearings and a belt that could be connected with 



A MERRY GO ROUND. 3 

the power of my automobile. I finished my labors about the time 
the capitalist and his chauffeur were due, and dragging a wagon to 
the road I pulled it across the roadway in front of a small bridge 
just as I recognized the swiftly coming automobile in the distance. 
They arrived in a very short time, and just as I had hoped, there 
was no one in the choo-choo car except the capitalist and his chauf- 
feur. Both dismounted to see what was the matter and pjrhaps 
express an opinion of a moment's delay. I did not seem to notice 
them until both had come close to where I was tinkering with a 
\sheel. Then without warning I grabbed one by the back of the 
neck and threw him to the ground and in a second with my powerful 
right I had the other one on top. They struggled, of course, but I 
am a large and strong man and they weie both light-weights, and I 
soon had a pair of handcuffs on each of them and had them fastened 
together. 

"What does this outrage mean?" almost screamed the capitalist. 

"I ain not goin..? to hurt you or take any mjney away from 
you," I repliei, "and the best thing you can do for yourself is to 
take matters quietly until I can explain." 

The chauffeur emitted a yell that was intended to attract the 
attention of anyone in the neighborhood, bat fortunately there was 
no one coming on the road at the time and he might as well havj 
saved himself the trouble. 

"I am glad I did not tell you I was not going to hurt you." I 
.said to the ch mffeur, "for I am going to kick you for that yell so 
you will not do it again." And I planted a good one where the 
little Willie did not get as many as he she uld have had as a boy or 
he would not have bsen oo naughty when he grew up I ho;)e it 
hurt, and guess it did. 

"Now behave, both of you, " I said. "I don't want to hart 
you, but I want you to come along with me for awhile, as I think 
yoa need some fatherly advice api^lied with the proper accompani- 
ment in true tatherly style. Come along with me." 

The chauffeur was willing but the capitalist pulled back a little. 
With the great strength I hope Providence gave me for just such 
lise, I hustled the two of them along at a dog-trot until I had them 
the other side of the barn and sufficiently tar from the road to be 
free from interference should they make a noise. 

Going back to the gate, I pulled the wagon inside, brought their 



4 A MERRY GO ROUND. 

automobile in and shut the gate, and the farm resumed its deserted 
appearance to outsiders. Taking the automobile with me to beyond 
the barn, so it would not attract attention, I was ready to admin- 
ister a treatment for speed madness that I hoped would prove effec- 
tive. 

"Now," I said to the two captives, who had been vainly trying 
to free themselves from their bonds, "it is only necessary to explain 
to you that the abuse of a good thing, the automobile, has gone far 
enough at the hands of speed maniacs and the time has come when 
an example is to be made of two of the worst offenders. I am going 
to give you both enough speed to last you all the rest of your lives, 
and if the publication of your experience does not result in correct- 
ing the abuse you will have a lot of companions in misery. ' 

"Don't you dare touch us." shouted the capitalist. "I'll spend 
my last dollar but I will have the law on you." 

"Ah, there, my friend, you are one of the class who have no 
regard for law except when they want to use it, who have done 
more to cause disrespect for law and the courts than any other single 
influence because disrespect and defiance has been more conspicuous 
than with other oft'enders. Well, you have tried to make the whole 
United States a so-t of no radii's land where there is no law, and 
jaht to show you how nice it will be when it is accomplished we 
will play that for a short time this barn yard is no man's land and 
there is no law. As far as the consequences to me are concerned, I 
will take my chances. For the present, there is no law." 

"Now," I continued, "I have constructed at some labor and 
expense to myself a lovely 'flying dutchmau' especially for you. 
You know what it is, because both of you as boys perhaps got the 
first taste of that pleasure in speed that resulted in madness and the 
death of one of your victims and crippling of another, to say nothing 
of daily defiance of law and a decent regard for the limbs and lives 
cf others. ' ' 

"But let me explain," said the capitalist, now taking the mat- 
ter more cooly but evidently not enjoying the prospect. 

"No explanations are necessary," I ;epliea. "One incident 
might be explained, but this is a disease and we are going to euro 
it." 

With tnis, I carried the chauffeur to one end of th.3 flying dutch- 
man and with straps firmly bound him to it. Then I did likewise 



A MEURY GO ROUND. 5 

with the capitLilist. 

When they were firmly seated I saitl : "Now I am goingto give 
yoa a nice ride. You have been sensible enough not to make a 
noise and I am glad to not have to gag you. It is too far from the 
road for your cies to attract attention, and I do not want to hurt 
you unneccessarily. But after the first few whirls your minds may 
not b3 as clear as they are noA^. and I want you to clearly under- 
stand what I shall expect as a result of this day's sport. IE you do 
not want a repetition of it, you," speaking to the capitalist, "will 
never provoke it again by reckless speeding, and in testimony of 
your good faith you will spend during the next two years at least 
five thousand dollars in helping to enforce the speed laws. And 
you," turning to the chauifeur, "within thirty days after an account 
of this affair has been published, will walk for au hoar on the 
streets of Chicago inside the loop with a large placard on your back 
containing the words, 'I am the man. ' I will probably never see 
either of you after today, but faithful carrying out of these instruc- 
tion will be the only thing t) prevent a repetition of the ride of 
today. ' ' 

"Please don't, " shouted the capitalist. "I will give you ten 
thousand dollars if you will let me oM" this thing." 

"Your money is no good here," I replied. "This is no man's 
land, where there is no law, no money, no nothing but have a good 
time today for tomorrow you may not live long. Hurrah! Who 
cares for expense'? Zip! Run down the constables!" and I put on 
the power, slowly at first, bat those liall- bearings worked beauti- 
fully and I soon had the flying dutchman spinning around at a great 
rate. In a minute the man woi'th his millions and the chautfeur 
were but a blur on the landscape, emitting yells that soon changed 
to sobs and mutterings and threats that sounded like the angry 
approach of a cyclone, followed by its gradually growing lower 
until the sound died away as it the wrathful force of the whirlwind 
had been spent. 

Not knowing how much of this sort of thing they could stand, 
I slowed the power and stopped it. 

"You dastardly scounih-til," said thi capitalist. "I'll have the 
law on you for this!" 

"Oh, you will, will you?" and I touched her up for an )ther 
whirl. It was a tood one that tims. After a time that suemed au 



6 A MERRY GO ROUND. 

age to me and must have seemed several eternities to the poor fellows 
on the whirligig, I again stopped it. This time there was no fight 
in either of them. The tears were running down their cheeks and 
they were sobbing like whipped children. And how they begged! 
Thev promised me everything they had, promised to be good, prom- 
ised to break up their automobilf:, promised never to ride in one 
again, and all the time crying and sobbing in a mamer that raally 
did e.Kcite my pity in spite of their many crim-^s. 

"Well, my boys, this little !^peeding won't hurt you, and jast to 
make your lesson a thorough one I am going to give you one mo'"e 
whirl and then leave you. I will send someone at ones to release 
you. " 

"Ob, don't, don't, please don't," they i3lead, bat with that aged 
woman and poor crippled bjy in my mind's eye, I tai'ued on the 
power once more. 

Presently I stopped it again, and this time the men were too 
much overcome for words. They leant forward as far as the strajis 
would permit, hopelessly dejected and without spirit enough to hold 
up their heads. I looked at each carafuUy, and as neither was 
iinconsciou^ or in worse than a dazed cmdition, I got into ray auto- 
mobile and left them, stopping at the first farm house to telephon3 
a physician to come there. As I had given a physician friend a 
pointer and he was waiting less than two miles a^'ay, they were 
soon released. I afterward learned that except for their nerves they 
were none the worse for the whirlwind ride, but were nervous 
w.'ecks aid in bed tor several days. They recovered, however, and 
were thoroughly cured of the speed madness. 

I heard that the capitalist said that he would not take the ride 
again for a million dollars, but he would also not give up his peace 
of mind f ro n again getting his nerves under control and free from 
the speed craze for a hundred million. There is no doubt about his 
carrying out my instructions to spend money to prosecute other 
olfenders, and the chauffeur is only waiting for the publication of 
this letter to appear on the streets of Chicago between two boards 
bearing the words, "I am the man." 

The best antidote for poison is sometimes too muc'.i poison. 



Knight of the Twentieth Century. 

The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
penter, dreaming of the need of a muscular Christianity that would 
go about the world punishing meanness and rewarding virtue. Fall- 
ing heir to a small fortune, his dream was made real. 



A COMEDY IN ONE ACT. 

I happened to drop into one of the largest theaters the other 
evening. I was not looking fir filth on the stage, as there are said 
to be several small places where that is made a specialty and to the 
few depraved people who want that sort of thing, by going out of 
•their way and seeking it they can find it. But theoretically the siza 
and character of the theater building, the character of the crowds 
that patronize the attractions there, and the general decency of the 
public mind should have been assurance that none but morally clean 
shows would be given there. I had no thought of anything except 
to pay for the privilege of spending an evening pleasantly. 

I have been much disgusted with the performances given the 
last few years. Since the trust has obtained control of the theatri- 
cal business there have been very few really meritorious perform- 
ances staged. Even tiie costumes and stage settings have been 
chsap and much of it having the ajipearance of having been culled 
trom the store-r()om of abandoned productions. The trust seems to 
be willing to take chances on drawing crowds merely frotn the fact 
that there is a large patronage regardless of merit, because Ameri- 
cans are a theater-going people, and they are cleaning up enormous 
profits on small investments — the true trust idea. In this play the 
chief attraction, if there could be a chief attraction in a whole so 
mediocre that a barn-storming aggregation with nothing better 
\vould soon be counting the ties, was a thirteen-year old boy's 
attempt to show ho»v silly he coald act. It cari'ied ma back to the 



A COMEDY IN ONE ACT. 8 

days wlien the Cherry sisters won a world-wide fame because their 
acting was so crude as to be laughable and interesting and when 
crowds thronged to see them for the purpose of laughing- at the per- 
formers. It seems to me, however, that the trust is rather over- 
doing that feature. When nearly all the performances for several 
seasons are that kind of shows it is time for protest. 

However. I was not disposed to care particularly about that 
matter, but when a suggestive song was introduced it brought to 
mind the anger I had felt at another performance where actual inde- 
cency was shown at another high-class theater. The anger may 
have been ciimnlative, at least tho incident of this evening formed 
the decision that I would do something to keep such things off the 
legitimate stage and away from the sight of the innocent and moral 
minded who have a right to patronize such theaters. 

The next day I made inquiry and learned the name of the man 
who was responsible for placing the former indec3nt act on the 
stage, and commsnced preparations foi' his treatment. Since he 
enjoyed filth, I was going to give him enough of it to last him for a 
time, at least. 

I rented a stable in the outskirts of the cit\' where we would be 
free from possible interference. In the stable I dug a pit varying in 
depth from three to .seven feet. In the pit I mixed some clean earth 
with w:iter until I had a nice paddle of mud, thin, but as clean as 
clean inud could be. Then I made a pole with a small sharp steel 
point in the end. Then I called on a druggist friend and bought a 
pint of the vilest smelling compound that he could find among his 
bottles. 

The theatrical manager is a morose sort of chap and it has been 
his habit to take almost daily spins alone in his automobile past the 
stable where I had made preparations for his entertainment. When 
my arrangements were coinjileted I sat down to wait for his appear- 
ance. But unfortunately for me he did not come that day. 

The next day I was waiting for him again, and about the usual 
time I saw his big red automobile throwing up the dust in the dis- 
tance. Spilling the vile smelling stuff in a corner of ihe stable (not 
in the pit) and stuffing cotton in my nostrils as a final preparation, 
I waved a cloth at him as he came along the road within sight of 
the stable. He saw the signal, and as I seemed to be tinkering with 
my automobile he evidently thought I needed some help ana drove 



i) A COMEDY IN ONE ACT. 

his machine into the yarJ. I was workin,^ with the machinery 
when he arrived, and he alightsd and came to ma before asking an 
explanation of the signals. 

"Ah, Mr. Blank," I said. "You are jast the man I want to 
see. I want to have a talk with yon. " 

"But what did you mean liy signaling to me?'' 

"Oh, I just wanted to talk vvitii you " 

"Well. I don't want to tcdk with you," he said, fear creeping 
into his eyes as he noticed my size, and the lonely character of the 
surroundings for tlie first time attracting his attention. With this 
he started to clamljer into his automobile, but a quick movement 
caug'it him and pinioned his arms to his side, while I made a hasty 
search to see if he was armed. Finding a revolver, I threw it away 
from us. 

He screamed for help, but almost before the scream had died 
away I had forced him into the stable and closed the door. 

Loosening him, I said : 

"Now you can yell all you want to bat it will do no good. I 
want to have a talk with you and will not hurt yoa if yon will be 
good. It is an informal way to secure a talk, bat you are here and 
I am liere and the talkfest will surely take place. " 

"What do yoa mean by these high-handed proceedings, anyway? 
Take me out of this vile smelling pi »ce. Why, it is awful!" and he 
started to coughing and made a break for the door, but it being 
locked he could go no further. 

"Never j'ou mind about the filthy smalling place," I said. "I 
am convinced that yoa like filth and am going to give yoa enough 
of it. Sit down, sit down and behave yourself." 

Evidently thinking that the bast way out of it was to seem to 
humor me. he slowly sat down. 

"You remember when yoii gave the vaudeville i^erformance 
called 'The Black Cat' a few weeks ago?" 

' ' Yes. ■ ' 

"You remember that in one part of the perfor nance there was 
an incident coarsely suggestive and decidedly immoral?" 

"Well, some jjeople might think so." 

"Don't you know it was?" 

"Yes." 

"Why did you perpetrate such an outrage upon the people who 



10 A COMEDY IN ONE ACT. 

who might innocently come into the theater for an evening's amuse- 
ment?" 

"Well, they did not have to como, and that act advertised tho 
show more than all the others combined, and brought the crowds." 

"Did it? Don't you know that immoral shows are not usually 
successful and are not even iirofitable at the disreputable places 
where they are regular features?" 

"Yes, but lots of people will go to a first-class theater to see 
such things who w(juld be ashamed to b3 seen at the other places, 
and the advertising that the goody-goody kickers give us is much 
cheaper than paid press notices." 

"Don't you know that the public mind is naturally clean and 
that clean shows with mjrit are the onei that wins the patronage 
that makes for profit?" 

"Yes, but clean talent costs money." 

"Then you confess that yo;i are willing to poison the minds of 
thousands of young people ana disgust many others who are attracted 
to b theater by its general I'eputation for decency hy an immoral act 
the sole excuse for which is that it will make money for you?" 

"Well, there is police supervision over plays, and if anyone 
makes complaint a play can he suppressed." 

"There, now, I was just waiting for that defense. You 
know it is just as rotten as your show. Suppression of a play means 
giving it an advertisement that only makes it attract more ]>ation- 
age. and results in a host of imiiators that try to take actvantage of 
the temporary excitement. Why, I have known jnsfances when sup- 
pressing a play has attracted such general comment that no matter 
how clean a man might wuat t.) be in his mind, there was so much 
talk about it among his associates that he was almost compelled to 
go to see it to seem to be up-to-date in matters of common conver- 
.sation. 

"No, my friend," I continued, "we have no police supervision 
of plays from the verv character of the business. That is one place 
where enforcement of the law does more harm than good. The law 
is powerle.ss. Decent minded people are powerless. Every elfort to 
correct tiie abuse but serves to increase it. Such desperate degen- 
erates as you are in the saddle and riding rough-shod over the rights 
of good people and fiendishly laughing because they can do nothing. 
Well, there has recently come into existence a force that reaches 



A COMEDY IN ONE ACT. n 

abuses that are triumphantly defying law and decsncy, and that 
foiC3 is the 270 pounds of outraged humanity you see before you." 

At this suggestion, the craven theatrical man made another 
break for the door, but he was an infant compared to my great 
strength, and I grasped him around the waist and thre^- him into 
the pit. 

"There," I said. "You like filth. Get your fill of if.'- 
Fortunately for him, he landed in the shallow part, and with a 
lunge managed to catch hold of the bank and only got in up to his 
hips. 

"Let me out, let me out," he screamed. "This smell is awful. 
I can't stand it any longer. Help! Help!" 

•'Pshaw!" I said. "I thought you liked filth. But it seems 
you don't when it is forced upon you. Take a little more of it." 
and I prodded him with the sticker end of the pole until he pranced 
around and got into the mud up to his chin. 

Then he did raise a yell, and such swearing and threatening you 
never heard in all your life. I let him yell and swear and thre"aten, 
prodding him when I .saw he was getting into the shallower places 
and chased him around that puddle until he was nearlv exhausted. 
I kept him away from the deep hole until he was too tired to struggle 
longer, when I said : 

"You will see that there is a cure for one evil that the law does 
not reach. When I tell you that if you ever put on the stage another 
vulgar act I will catch yoa and give you another dose of this medi- 
cine, I think the next time you are tempted yju will say 'Ain't it 
Awful, Mabel'?' and resist it?" 

"Yes, yes," he shouted. "Let me outof this stinking mess and 
I will promise you anything.-' 

"Another case of the devil was sick, the devil a monk would 
be; the devil was well, the devil a monk was he," I said. "I am 
not convinced that you are sincerely reformed. But before we con- 
tinue the treatment I want to say that in addition to my promise to 
repeat this, if you do not entirely cut out all suggestions of immor- 
ality in every stage act with which you have any connection, as an 
assurance that you have really taken this matinee in the spirit in 
which it has been given I insist that to avoid my visiting you again 
with this or sojae worse punishment that you shall be held respon- 
sible for the creation of a theatrical board with power to secretly 



12 A COMEDY IN ONE ACT. 

censor all performances and secretly enforce a penalty for anythin.sr 
of the kind from the legitimate stage. I am not asking too much. 
I will not ask you to take the responsibility of correcting the5e 
matters in avowedly disreputable quarters. That is for others. But 
with your wealth and great influence in theatrical circles you can 
make a clean-up of the legitimate. And I want it done." 

He would not make a promise, but sought again to get out of 
the pit. Believing the sober after-thought would finish my work 
and the terror of an unknov»n enemy who came from nowhere and 
vanished from his sight and the power of his influence would be 
V)etter than a forced promise, I prepared for the final touch. Prod- 
ding him with the pole, I forced him deeper and deeper into the 
mire. In his efforts to escape the pole, he splashed the mud over 
his face and hair, and the awful smell was nearly driving tiim 
frantic. It was awful. My eyes were smarting and the tears were 
starting, and it must have been many times worse for the poor 
fellow in the pit with his nose unprotected. He was crying, and 
with the mud spattered over his face and hair, was a most unsightly 
spectacle. 

Keeping up the vigorous prodding, I presently pushed him into 
tlie deepest of the pit, and with a final splurge he was off his feet 
and under the mess. He was something of a swimmer, and after 
beating about for a time manajred to find bottom and stand up. I 
permitted him to scramble to the bank, and with a "Good-bye, I 
a-n going now," I left the stable and was soon hustling away in my 
automobile. 

After getting a good start, I turned and saw him climb into his 
automobile, wrap a blanket around him, and the last I saw of him 
was a streak of red flame sparkling through a cloud of dust in the 
direction of his home. 

I do not forget my victims, and inquiry throu:?li friendly chan- 
nels satisfied me that he had taken the lesson in the right spirit and 
was making efforts tu carry out my instructions, having forgotten 
his hatred of me in the sober affcer-thoughfc that showed him that 
something was )-eally needed to correct a great wron^, only lamaut- 
ing that he happened to be the unfortunate victim. 

There are times when law is not law and it is necessary to go 
back to the primeval man and brute force. It is fortjnate then 
when good happens to be the stronger. 



Sinjght of the Twentietli Century. 

The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
and has had athletic training. 'He had been an unostentatious car- 
penter, dreamintf of the need of a muscular Christianity that would 
go about the world punishing meanness and rewarding virtue. Fall- 
ing heir to a small fortune, his dream was made real. 



RETRIBUTION AND RESTITUTION. 

During the many years I have lived in Chicago there has been 
one matter that has been peculiarly aggravating, and I have 
indulged in many day dreams of attempts to correct it, but handi- 
capped by the necessity of the making of a living, I could not afford 
to take chances. I sincerely believe that the destiny that rules the 
affairs of this world, "rough hew them as we may," put it into the 
heart of a forgotten uncle to will me his small fortune in return 
for a boyish love ot long ago, because I so earnestly longed to use 
my intelligence and strength in efforts to correct abuses that cannot 
be reached by ordinary means. 

Last Tuesday I engaged a suite of rooms at the X— — hotel, 
having previously learned that Mr. G., an official of the Illinois 
Central railway who is popularly supposed to control its policies, 
was to meet an eastern financier there for discussion of important 
business matters. My rooms were just around ttie corner from the 
one of the eastern man, and toward the elevator. Confident the 
private meeting would be held in this room, I hoped for favoiable 
circumstances for the rest. 

I had guessed correctly, and after I had seen the parties retire 
to this room, I found a seat in the hall and commenced reading a 
very interesting novel. One hour, two hours, three hours passed. 
The shades of evening commenced to fall. Here and there in the 
gathering darkness the magic finger of the electric current turned 
on the light. The merry hum of traffic was growing less distinct. 



14 RETRIBUTION AND RESTITUTION. 

The stars commenced to peep out, and presently a full moon showed 
above the lake horison, tha face wearing a broad smile, the e5'e3 
twinkling, and I thought I heard a chuckle, although it may have 
been only a notion rhat it came from the moon, in anticipation of 
his share in the fun that was coming. 

It may have been a passing cloud, but I thought the moon 
winked at me, and just then the door opened and P.Ir. G. came out. 
The parting words gave me time to leisurely arise, put the book in 
my pocket and with a conspicuous yawn, start toward the elevator. 
In a moment — as Howells says, almost a minute— I was keeping step 
with the famous railroad man, my presence being recognized with a 
hasty glance, evidently a satisfied one as my dress would indicate a 
regular patron ot the hotel, and my size and, I say it without vanity, 
good natured and pleasing appearance, evidently impressed him 
satisfactoril}'. 

As we reached the door of my room, which I had left ajar, I 
swiftly placed my hand over his mouth and forced him into the 
room, closing the door. It was easily and quickly done. A man of 
ordinary size and muscle is as a child in my hands. 

Before I removed my hand from his mouth, I said: "I warn 
you to make no noise. I shall not rob you or seriously hurt you, 
but I have brought you here for a nice, quiet talk, and I want to 
know if you will behave?" He nodded, and I released him and 
invited him to be seated. He was game, and sat down without a 
word. 

"You do not know me," I said, "and I have not the honor of 
your personal acquaintance, although I have heard you spoken of as 
a successful business man, and a genial and pleasing gentleman per- 
sonally. You believe, however, that the whole world should be 
forced to bend to your desire to make profits for the Illinois Central 
railway. The comfort of individuals, honor of public officials, your 
own hope of heaven have been sacrificed to the one great greed for 
profits. Homes have been blighted, families ruined, property rights 
disregarded. You have lied, cheated, stolen, bribed, beaten and 
crushed your way to the one great success. So frequently have you 
triumphed that you believe yourself to be supi-eme. Year after year 
this greed has fattened upon its own growth, until in your bigotry 
yoa think you own the earth. I am going to prove to you that the 
pDint of a needle backed by the great principle" of the underlying 



RETRIBUTION AND RESTITUTION. 15 

justice of the universe is greater than all your success, all your 
power, and capable of changing the whole course of your life and of 
your opinions, 

"The most infamous of all the impositions that have been perpe- 
trated on the people of Chicago," I continued, "was the stealing of 
their lake front. You cannot be reached by the courts. Your 
money is ever ready to buy delays and perjure witnesses. You 
gained possession by seemingly legal forms. There is only onti way 
to reach the matter nnw. That is by reaching the physical body of 
the man who is in position to make partial restitution. 

"I will not risk permitting you to telephone, but I will send for 
a messenger boy and you can send word to anyone who is exi)ecting 
you that you are detained for a few hours." 

Mr. G. 's face brightened, and stepping to a desk where there 
was writing paper he wrote a short note, hesitated a moment, 
crumpled it and threw it to one side, and wrote another. This one 
was handed to me, and it read all right. It was my intention to 
hand it to the boy at the door, but one never knows what to expect 
from the festive messenger boy. In response to his knock, I opened 
the door and before I realized it he had slipped past me and was in 
the center ot the room. However, I vvas quick enough to intprc-ept 
the crumpled note and a five dollar bill that Mr. G. tried to slip to 
him. The boy retired and I read the note: "In Parlor A with a 
lunatic. " 

"You are not complimentar}^ my friend, " I'said, "but you will 
revise your opinion before I get through with j'ou. Sometimes con- 
version comes from within, sometimes from without. It can be just 
as effective either way. 

"Now, I want you to promise^to yourself— not to me, because 
you would not mean it — that you will commence a return to the city 
of Chicago of part of the great steal of the lake front by making a 
park, a breathing spot, in the lake somewhere between the Art 
Institute and Jackson park, and building a viaduct across your 
tracks to it. I will leave the size and details to you. It will do no 
good to attempt to punish me for this night's work, because I have 
ample means to get free from arrest, at least on bail, and just as 
sure as fate I will get you again— and next time I will not let you 
off so easy. 

"Now to business Retire behind the dresser, take off your 



10 RETRIBUTION AND RESTITUTION. 

clothes and put on the night gown you will find there." 

Recognizing and fearing a physical force he had never mat lie- 
fore, Mr. G, obeyed, taking plenty of time, it is true, but he olieyed. 

"Now lie on this lounge. 

"The Illinois Central steal of the lake front, " said I, drawing 
my easy chair close to him, "has been to the people of Chicago a 
daily irritation by its absorption of the free lake breezes and the 
natural places for breathing spots, and has caused scores and hun- 
dreds of women and children to sicken and die. It has not seemed 
like a great calamity, like a fire or tornado, but has been th^ irrita- 
tion of daily, of hourly, pin pricks. Now I am going to let you 
know wtiat that m^ans. For the greed of profits you have lieen 
willing that others may suffer. For the hope of good to result I 
shall see that you get a small sample of that suffering. 

"I have here a cork with a needle just peeping through one end 
of it. For a time— it may be all night, if I find it necessary — I shall 
at frequent intervals press that cork against your body . until I leave 
you sore from bead to foot. .. *' 

"Just as a starter, here are a couple." The victim winced and 
edged over, but of course the hurt was nut more than a light sting. 
I had previously tried it on myself a dozen times, and kne.v there 
was nothing more to it than an irritation. 

The dogjred determination that had surmounted so many olista- 
cles in a successful career gave him nerve to take his punishment 
and there was no whimpering. Sjeing that he was not desirous of 
discussing my suggestions, and knowing him to b3 not yet in a 
ti'ame of mind to agree with my conclusions, I took out my Ijook 
and commenced to read and jab— jabbing with regularity bat no 
particular enthusiasm. The victim stood it With patience for as 
long as half an hour, when he turned over wuth a groan to present a 
new surface. 

As regular as clock work the jabbing continued for another 
fifteen minutes, when unable to endure the irritation longer, Mr. Cx. 
leaped from the lounge and attempted to grab me by the throat. 
Still keeping my eye on the printed page. I reached out that strong 
right arm, grasped him by the shoulder and pushed him back tj his 
place, and holding him with my knee, I read aloud the exceed- 
ingly interesting part of the noval I had reached: "And as ih'3 
lovely heroins swept through Jackson i^ark in her touring car the 



RETRIBUTION AND RESTITUTION. 17 

villain stai'tetl in pursnit with his six-cjiincJer, fiendishly chuckling 
with glee as he realized that in her eagerness to escape him she 
would exceed the speed limit and there was one chance in a million 
that a parlc policeman would arrest her and tlius bring her into his 
toils." Of course I could not leave the story at this interesting 
point, so I resumed my seat, fumbled around and found the cork, 
and again commenced the steady, rhymthic jab. jab, jab. 

The coolness and contempt of it all took all the nerve out of 
Mr. G. 

Another half hour of peace and quiet except the involuntary 
twists of the patient and an occasional half-suppressed groan. 

"I give in," he at last exclaimed. 

"Don't want you to give in," I replied. "Nothing to give in 
to me about. 1 want you to be converted. Don't bother me, any- 
how. I'm interested. " 

The heroine's automobile had just mis.sed hitting a dray while 
crossing Van Baren street, with the villain only a block away. 
The needle recommenced its i^ersistent but not frequent jab, jab, jab, 
the automobile bearing the fair heroine through the crowded streets, 
across the river and along the lake shnre drive. 

Meanwhile, the patient was writhing most disagreeably, so that 
I did not hit him only about every other jab. He was groaning and 
fussing, pounding the sofa pillow and disparting himself in a very 
undignified manner. He was getting feverish and excited. The 
pain could not be severe, but the everlasting nagging of the little 
sticker was more than human patience could stand, and he was get- 
ting desperate. 

"Now," I said, "we will have a half hour of quiet, and if I get 
this heroine successfully married o.^ in that tima you may talk to 
me ten minutes before the jabbing recommences." 

Within the half hour my novel closed satisfactorily with the 
information that the heroine and her true lave were married and 
lived happily together for a short time, and I asked Mr. G. what 
he thought about things in general and himsslf in particular. 

"I am converted," he said, sitting up. "I would not have be- 
lieved it possible that such an experience could have affected my 
view of business matters, but as I have bsen lying here dreading a 
repetition of that awful jab, jab, jaV), it occurred to me that there 
certainly might ba and there cartainly was some things in this 



18 RETRIBUTION AND RESTITUTION. 

world more to be considered than the question of profits for the 
Illinois Central. I had a thousand stinging sensations over my body 
proving it to be true. I commenced to figure out arguments in 
favor of complying with your request. Then I saw how very true 
it was that I had sacrificed true manhood, honor, even the Christian 
religion of my mother on the altar of profits for the Illinois Central. 
I have succeeded, but such success has looked pretty cheap to me 
during the last hour. I have been a man with one idea. I am glad 
to realize that there are other things worth considering. I promise 
you that I will do as you wish, and consider it only as a start toward 
a better and healthier view of business life, recognizing that there 
are moral as well as business responsibilities. 

"You will probably think this statement only a bluff, but it is 
not, and I will take the rest of my punishment like a man, acknowl- 
edging that while never expscted, it was well deserved." 

"I have no more punishment for you," I said. "My work is 
done. I am going now. You will find a soothing ointment on the 
dresser. We all bump up against the rough edges sometimes. I am 
glad you will be the better for this bump. " 

It makes a big difference to the railroad magnate whose skin is 
being jabbed. 



tonight of the Twentieth Century. 

The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
about the world punishing meanness and rewarding virtue. Falling 
heir to a small fortune, his dream was made real. 



SKINNING A SKINFLINT. 

I have had my eye on a rich old skinflint, living in the little 
town of Y— , for several months, and at last found time to go there 
and prepare for his humiliation. Of all the stingy, stingy, stingy 
men I ever saw or heard of, he wa? the worst. I haven't the time 
to begin to tell the many instances of his penuriousness. Help his 
neighbors? Not he. Not a single act of kindness in all his life. 
Not a tender spot. Not even a pleasant word. Cross, crabbed, 
grasping, grumpy, hating all the world, hated by all of his world. 
Too contemptible for the love of even those who try to "love their 
enemies," since it is impossible to I'espect a hl^man being who will 
not recognize a single bond of human sympathy. Rich in gold, 
but a leprous outcast in the real things of life. 

But that was not all. He was proud, stiff-necked and bigoted. 
No one had dared to cross him or oppose him for so many years that 
none of his neighbors could remember a time when he had not held 
absolute sway in all matters affecting himself, and in other affairs 
lie took no interest. He stood so erect in his pride and selfglorifi- 
fication that he bent over backward. He had no greetings for the 
jiasser-by. His pompous vanity seemed to make his avarice even 
more repulsive. 

This is the man, and now I will tell you about the remedy. I 
dropped into the little town of Y— unheralded, of course. No one 
knev^ me or my mission. I found the home of B— , the skinflint, 
was a two story house near the central part of the village, and for- 



20 SKINNING A SKINFLINT. 

tunately for me it had a balcony facing the main street, a door 
opening to it from a room on the second floor. 

Making an investigation, I found it would be easy to escape 
unseen from tha hoase tlirough a barn and woods in the rear. 

Everything being ready for action, I provided myself with a 
good, strong paddle, ab:)ut two feet long, one end trimmed to lit m\'- 
none too petite hand. I boldly knocked. The skinflint cautiously 
opened the door, peeped out and bluntly asked what I wanted. The 
door was opened wide enough, however, for my foot to get inside, 
and the rest was easy. Saeing resistance was useless, Mr. B. per- 
mitted me to enter. 

"Nuw," I said, "I want to have a talk with you." 

He tried a bluff, but I deliberately locked the door, and took 
him by the ear and started up the stairway. He started to cry 
aioud, but a brawny hand covered his mouth. 

He vtas tall and scrawny, but a coward, and a squeeze with my 
lelt arm while my right hand covered his mouth, took all the fight 
out of him. Releasing him, I said: 

"I came here to punish you for your stinginess and general 
meanness, and if you mak3 a noise it will be the woi-se for you." 

"What do you mean by this conduct?" he stammered, tor the 
f.rst time in his life cowed to subjection. 

"I-mean to teach you a lesson you will never forget. I will not 
liarm you, but I will break that iron will of yours and make a man 
out of the skinflint who has been masquerading in the guise of a 
man. You have stolen, lied, cheated, starved to pile up gold, gold, 
gold, but I am going to show you that for one hour all your gold 
will not save you from a vengeance that has been too long in over- 
taking you. You are a crazy man, warped, egotistical, wretched 
carrion of a man, polluting pure air with your presence, a nuisance 
to yourself and a torture to the community." 

The thoroughly frightened wretch saw that I meant business 
and tremblingly tried to beg. 

"No begging," I said. "Your character is all that is embraced 
in the word skinflint. There is only one way to change such a per- 
verted disposition. That is physical humiliation. All the kindness, 
all the good books^ all the soft phrases, surrounding you for a life- 
time with examples of kindness and moral influences have only served 
to harden your heart. Solomon said something about sparing the 



SKINNING A SKINFLINT. 21 

rod and spoiling the child, and you have been a spoiled child for 
fifty years. I am KO'ng to give you the whipping your daddy failed 
to give YOU and I am going to make up for lots of lost time. What 
is more, if you do not change your ways, give up your penurious 
habits, be generous to your neighbors, bend your proud neck to the 
yoke of humility, I will come again and again. I will find j'ou 
though you go to the ends of the earth. I will never let up until 
yon are a changed man. Come." 

I led him upstairs like a lamb to the slaughter. Opening the 
dnor, I placed a chair on the balcony and bade him step out. 

It was not necessary to shout for a crowd. Blacksmith Jones 
saw the unusual spectacle and commenced to stare, Saul and Smith 
and Wagoner saw there was something unusual going 0:1 and passed 
the word along. In three minutes a score of people were standing 
in doorways, peeping around corners and grouped about the gate to 
see what the stranger and Mr. B. were about to do. 

"Take off your coat." With a pathetic look toward the crowd, 
in whose faces he saw no answer to his appeal for help, he obsyed. 

Calmly seating myself, I pulled him over my lap as a lusty 
father would handle a boy. and in the presenee of his neighbors I 
paddled him, oh, I paddled him— paddled him good and plenty. 
With the first stroke, a howl arose from the crowd, then a cheer, 
and with each resounding whack another cheer. I did a good job of 
it. I made up for many years of lost time. When finally I carried 
him inside he was a picture of distressful humility. He was cured. 
One application was enough. 

Quickly finding my way out through the rear of the house, I 
got away. None knew from whence I came, nor whither I went. 
Thus the work goes on. 

I heard from there a weak later. Two days of sulks, and B. 
opened his heart to a neighbor, frankly told him that the awful 
haniiliation had taught him a deserve! lesson and that he desired 
to make amends for his faults. His first act was the writing of 
libjral check) for several worthy loc.il charitable and m:>ral enter- 
prises and the cancelling of several morfcages that had alrealy been 
paid in usurious interest. In the few days previous to my report 
his home had acquired a dog, a cat and a bird, all evidences of a 
desire for cjmpanionship, the children of the community were daily 
making merry in his home, an evidence of true reform, and he had 



22 SKINNING A SKINFLINT. 

endeared himself to all the people of the village by many acts of 
kindness and good feeling. ^ 

A well-applied board sometimes vvorketh wonders with grown- 
up boys. 



Benight of the Twentieth Century. 



ThG Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
about the world punishing meanness and rewarding virtue. Falling 
heir to a small fortune, his dream was made real. 



SEEING AS OTHERS SEE. 

A friend of mine asked me to take his 8-year-old daughter to an 
occulist to have her eyes examined to see if there was any disease 
starling. Her eyes had been weak for a short time, and he had 
promised to take her to an occulist that day and had un appoint- 
ment, but business matters made it difficult for him to go. I am 
an accommndating sort of fellow, and as I had the time to spare, of 
course I gladly consented. 

"Do you know the occulist?" I asked. 

"No," he replied, "but our family physician has recommended 
Dr. W. Here is his card. The appointment is for nine o'clock this 
iiiorning, and Gertrude is ready. Please explain to the doctor that 
we don't want her to wear glasses now if it can possibly be avoided. 
We are looking after her general lieaUh to the best of our ability, 
and she is in the doctor's care in that respect. We are having her 
rest her eyes, and as there is no school, and she is not straining her 
eyes, we feel that it is better to let nature heal itself than risk the 
positive strain that would come from wearing glasses. These may 
come later, but we believe at her age a resting of the eyes from all 
strain would be better than a questionable relief from glasses. We 
have feared that at school she may have contracted some disease of 
the eye that should be treated before it has gone too far. That is 
all we want to know." 

I have been blessed with good eyes, and have never had an 
oi)portunity of knowing what sort of an examination an occulist 



24 S3SING AS OTHERS SEE. 

would maize or treatment he would jrive and welcomed the oppor- 
tunity for observiition, since I am of an investigating turn of mind. 

Well, we found the occulist waiting for us, and not much evi- 
dencj of other patients. He invited us into his den, and I carefully 
explained to him all my friend had said about the child's eyes, and 
his desire simply to kmiw if there were anj' disease, leaving the 
matter of treatment for another visit, especially as he was preju- 
diced against so young a child Vk'earlng glasses, and believing they 
often resulted in harming well eyes. 

"All right, all right," he said. "I will make a thorough exam- 
ination and then it is for me to make a recommendation of what I 
think is needed and it is for the little girl's parents to decide whether 
to act on the advice or not. I do not sell glasses. I treat the eyes, 
and if they need glasses I supply them. It is the opticians who are 
ruining eyes by the hundreds by urging the use of glasses, because 
that is where they make their money. All right, all riglit, we'll see 
we'll see. " 

"Come here, little girl. What is your name?" 

"Gertrude. " 

"Now, Gertrude, stand right here with your shoulders thrown 
back, and look me In the eye," and he held his finger in front of 
her, moving it forward. 

"Do you see one finger, or two?" 

"One." 

"Now, try again,'' and the same thing was repeated. 

"Ah, you see two. Now tell me to stop right, where you see 
two." 

This was repeated over and over until after a time the child was 
so flustered that she could easily have seen a doieu. 

"Now, Gertrude, look at this red light over here and tell ma 
whether it is to the right or left of this card.'' 

"To the right.' ' 

"Ah, we have it. Novv try it again.- ' 

This was kept up for half an hour. Then he had her sit down 
to an instrument and play peekaboo thro'ugh it for another half 
hour, the occulist jumping up at intervals, rushing to another table 
and marking down some cabalistic signs and figures, muttering that 
"you of course don't understand, anyway, but it is so and so plus so 
and so. " 



SEEING AS OTHERS SEE. 25 

Then he clrag;;ed out a case of lenses and fittinsr one, told the 
girl to look at a card suspended upon the wall, reading from the top 
down. After a half hour of this, trying and re-trying glass after 
glass, I said : 

"Doctor, I don't know much about this matter <>t examining 
eyes, but I hope you are not trying to fit glasses for the girl. That 
will come later if it is desirable, but today her father only wants to 
know if there is any disease of the eye." 

"I understand, I understand," he said. "It is for me to make 
a thorough examination of the eyes, and that is what I am doing. 
• After that I will make my recommendation, and the parents can act 
on it or not as they see fit. ' ' 

Well, with this suggestion, I felt that I had to take what came, 
being helpless under the general condition that a patient is abso- 
lutely in the control of his physician, and I held my i3eace. 

But it was hard work. That occulist put in the better part of 
the day trying on one glass after another, going over the same 
ground witli the finger and red light, with the table magic-lantern, 
and other devices. After awhile he announced as a tremendous dis- 
covery that one eye was stronger than the other, that they did not 
have the same "tocus. " I wanted to tell him that well eyes were 
that way, in fact the whole side of the face was controlled by 
a different set of muscles than the other and they could not by any 
])ossibility be exactly even, this difference extending to the whole 
l)ody, but I thought I had batter hold my peace and take what was 
coming. 

• Well, after all these hours of monkey-business, considerable time 
was taken to show just how certain exceedingly expensive medicine 
he gave her should be dropped into the eyes, we were told to come 
back the next morning, and permitted to go. 

I was game, and went back the next day to see the burlesque 
finished. 

We arrived at the appointed time and — would you believe it? — 
that man again went through all those monkey-shines, glasses and all. 
Guess he became hungry about noon, when he handed us a pair of 
glasses and a prescriijtion with instructions how to use the drops, 
and instructions for the girl to be brought back in a week. 

"But is there any disease of the eye. Doctor?" I asked. 

"No," he said. "They only need rest. They have been strained 



26 SEEING AS OTHERS SEE. 

.a little, probably from too much study. Fler general health needs 
toning up a bit. " 

I asked for his bill and when he said $15 I paid it with the 
mental reservation that we should liave had the information we 
wanted for about $2 and that !3;13 of the fee was robbery, the hours 
of useless tomfoolery and the cheap glasses being for their effect on 
the bill. 

A few weeks after this incident I made the acc[uaintance of a 
physician who had an office in the same building with Dr. W. , the 
occulist. I asked if lie knew him, and upon his replying in the 
the aftirmative, I detailed the esperience and asked if he did not 
think we had been "worked" under cover of the rights of a physi- 
cian with his patient. 

He asked the date, and laughed. "You was the sucker, then. 
Dr. W. told me when I happened in his office that day that he 
needed the money to go to a big banquet that was to be. held that 
night and an 'angel' came in and furnished $10 for the purpose." 

Well, I knew it was a not uncommon thing to do a trick like 
that, but I did not like to play the part of the sucker. 

So I took this occulist in hand. I rented a furnished flat that 
admirably suited my purpo.se, and te^ei^honed Dr. W. that there was 
a fee of $10 for him if he would come to my house that evening, 
giving the street number, and without giving him a chance ti> ask 
why the patient could not come to his office, hung up the receiver. 
He needed the money again, as I counted on, and was there promptly 
on time. 

I ushered him into a brilliantly lighted room, and asked him to* 
look into my eyes and see if there was anything- wrong with them. 

"Well," he said, "they look all right, but I can make a much 
better examination in my office." 

"That's all right, doctor, this is all the examination I want. 
Here is the fee of $10 that I promised you. But while j'ou are here 
I want to have a talk with you. I am convinced that you are one 
of the occulist fakirs who are reckless with people's eyes, and will 
do anything to bleed the patients who come to you in confidence of 
the general good faith of physicians, occulists, lawyers and dentists. 
You also take advantage of the fact that for this same reason the 
law gives if; entirely in the jjower of these practitioners to fix the 
charge, and no matter how unreasonable it may b3 the jiatient mast 



SEEING AS OTHERS SEE. 27 

pay, and 'professional courtes\'' will make all the other doctors, 
lawyers and occulists swear that the charge is reasonable when they 
know it is robbery. I believe that yoa did harm to my little girl 
friend's eyes with your nerve-racking examination that was made 
for no other purpose than to get money you was not entitled to. I 
believe that like others of your tribe yoa have forced spectacles on 
children and others many times when they were damaging to the 
eyes, and you did it for no other purpose than to make a bluff at 
earning the big fee you proposed to charge. Now I am going to 
have my revenge. ' ' 

At that a wild look came into the doctor's eye, and he glanced 
around for a means of escape. The doctor was a bundle of nervous- 
ness, anyway. 

"No use in your trying to get away. I have 2'repared on pur- 
pose for tills meeting. No one can hear you if you shout, and the 
door is safely locked. 

"Doctor, did you ever hear of an East Indian herb that has the 
power, without harm t(t the eyes, of destroying sight for a year? 
No? Well, you don't know everything abjut the eyes. Come here. 
Stand right there. Look me in the eye. Do you see. one finger or 
two?" 

Just then, with the other hand I squirted some water in his 
eyes. 

"There, doctor, let us see how you like to have your eyes treated 
in a careless fashion. You will recover from blindness in time, but 
I hope you will have been taught a lesson that eyes are too precious 
tor quacks to play with. Sit down there. It is no use to whine 
and whimper. The die has been cast. You might as well take 
your punishment like a man. If I could do all the things I would 
like to do to you, yoa would consider it plenty, but blindness may 
give you a clearer insight, into human affairs than your out sight 
has seemed to do. 

All this time the doctor was badly scared; thoroughly balieving 
that I had squirted the East Indian medicine into his eyes, and was 
groveling and whimpering and begging me to let him off and let 
him out. 

By a previous arrangement with the janitor I had fixed it .so 
that at a signal from me he would giadually turn off the lights in 
my room, so slowly that it took half an hour for the room to come 



28 SEEING AS OTHERS SEE. 

to total darkness, and so gradually that he could not have a suspicion 
that it was done by mechanical means. 

Well, as the room commenced to grow darker slowly that fellow 
thought he was surely going blind, and when I told him that when 
he recovered his sight he must turn to some other employment, 
instead of harming people's eyes, he became frantic. Slowly the 
darkness crept on. More and more he groveled and begged. More 
and more he pleaded and promised. But I was adamant. 

Finally, when the room was dark as pitch, I told him I was 
going to leave him and that when I was ready I would see that he 
was released. I then left him in the darkness, and the last thing I 
heard was his fumbling about trying to find a means of escape and 
shouting for help. 

I telephoned his hotel that he would not be home that night. 

The next morning I had the lights turned on the instant I went 
into the room. I found the erstwhile frisky doctor had silent a 
wretched night, overwhelmed with grief at the supposed k».3S of his 
sight. He sat up and blinked and blinked in the brilliant light, and 
a wan smile came over his face. 

"Well, it ain't true, it ain't true, is it?" was his first remark. 

"No, it is not true," I replied, "but I hope you have had a 
good scare that you will remember for many a day. I meant what I 
.said when I told you that you must give up treating eyes to someone 
with more conscience. Now, what are you going to do about it?" 

"Well." he !^aid, "I have recognized for a long time that I was 
a failure as an occalist. I passed the examinations by the merest 
scratch, bat having gone that far, and having a living to make, I 
kept on. Patients have not been numerous. Expenses are high. 
And I had to have money to live on, and in this big city there are 
so many calls for money that I confess that I have not been overly 
scrupulous about means of getting it inside of professional possibili- 
ties. If I had something else to tarn to in which I could make a 
Jiving I would never look an honest eye in the face again." 

"What do you think you are best fitted for?" 

"A farmer. " 

"You could not do much harm there, anyway. I am sorry for 
you and sorry that this punishment seemed necessary, but after all 
you have pleased me by taking it sensibly and talking to me truth- 
fully, and as I can help yoa to start as a farmer I will take i^leasure 



SEEING AS OTHERS SEE. 29 

in doing so. " 

We went into details on this matter over a hearty breakfast and 
a few hours later parted the best of friends. Pie will make well 
eyes sick no more. 

The man who would mistreat the human eye for a few paltry 
dollars deserves the punishment of being burned at the stake, hanged 
and quartered, but I could not give it to him. 



^^nBght of the Twentieth Century. 

The Knight weighs 270 poands, stands six feet three, well built, 
nnd has had athletic training. *He had been an unostentatious car- 
penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
about the world ijunishing meanness and rewarding virtue. Falling 
heir to a small fortune, his dream was made real. 



DEVELOPING HORSE SENSE. 

I happened to take a seat in a train the other day where some- 
one had left a small country newspaper. Nothing else to do, I 
glanced over its columns, and this item attracted my attention : 

"Quite a little excitement was furnished last Wednesday by Sam 
Wenski, whose horse balked on main street at too heavy a load. 
Sam is noted for a fiery temper, and the public place chosen by the 
horse for his refusal to pull the load was too much for him aiid a 
beating resulted that furnished excitement for the entire town and 
nearly i-esulted in worse. Some attempt was made by the bystanders 
to stop the cruelty, but Sam weighs 200 pounds and threatened to 
whip the entire crowd, and no one seemed desirous of taking the 
lead in making it stop. Several eager citizens took hold of the 
wheels and helped get the wagon to the top of the small hill. Sam 
said the next day he was sorry he had beaten the horse so much, as 
he was a valuable animal, but that he had a temper he could not 
control. " 

My train was going east but as this town was west of me, I got 
off at the next station and took the first west-bound train. I 
thought there was onetown where 270 pounds of human flesh, hard 
as iron and not afraid of anything on the land or under the sea, was 
sadly needed to not only teach one man a lesson, but many cowards 
an object lesson. 

Arriving at the town, I spent the evening making inquiries 
about Sam Wenski and confirming the truthfulness of the newspaper 
account. I found that he was a bachelor farmer living two miles 
west of town and that he was at home, one man telling me he was 



DEVELOPING HORSE SENSE. 31 

expectin;? to come to town at 7 o'clock the next moruin;?. 

I purchased a nice, limber blacksnake whip, one with pretty 
stripes on the handle, jnst the sweetest little teaser about, six feet 
long that anj'one could want. I also pvirchased twenty feet of stout 
cord, and left an order at the livery stable for a horse and two- 
wheeled sulky to be at the hotel at o'clock the next morning, pay- 
ing in advance for their use and tipping the hostler a dollar to meet 
nie at the depot the next morning to return the animal to the barn. 

The next morning I arose betimes and humming "Happy Day! 
Happy Day!" betook myself to the waiting sulky. It was a lovely 
morning, bright sunshiny, the pure spring air, green grass and 
trees and the stray posie? along the roadside conspiring to invigorate 
one and make one rejoic3 in human existence. It was a happy day. 
It promised to be an esi^ecially happy day for Sam Wenski. It 
would be a little stormy for a time, but he would look back upon it 
for many, many years as the one day of all his life over which he 
should feel happiest. 

A mile and a half from the town, a lane left the main road, 
cnrved immediately among some trees, then a level, straight !^hoot 
of half a mile to the house. "Tiiis is fine, " I said to myself. "Wo 
can have a real sociable time and no one to interfere. It loolcs like 
good luck is on my side again." 

Arriving at the house, I saw Sam just starting for the stable. 
Dismounting, I unhitched the horse and tied him to the I'ear of the 
sulky. I had said nothing to Sam except "good morning," and he 
was somewhat nonplussed when he asked wdiat he could do for me, 
and I said I would explain in a few minutes. 

Having cared for my horse, I stepped up to Sam and taking the . 
newspaper from my pocket, read the item aloud. Sam evidently did 
not know what to make of the action and stepped hack in alarm. 
"Is that true?" I asked. "Yes," he said. "But what business is 
it of yours'?" 

"No business at all, at all," I cheerfully replied, "except that 
I am going to make it my business. I read that item on the train 
more than a hundred miles from here and promptly came here to 
let you know that there are some people in this world who will not 
stand for such treatment of dumb animals. I am going to give you 
a dose of the same treatment j'ou gave your horse. You deserve a 
hundred timos wjrs3, bat I will try tn msasare a heroic do.se that 



32 DEVELOPING HORSE SENSE. 

will care your disease without killing the patient." 

"You won't do nothing of the kind," he shouted, starting to 
f^rab a club. "I'll—" 

I don't know what he was intending to promise, for just then 
the flat side of my g;ood right hand slapped his face so hard that his 
200 pounds of beef scrambled to save itself and then measured its 
length on the ground. 

Jumping to his feet, he lunged at me visciously. 

My right arm again suffered with muscular expansion and he 
dropped to the sod with a thud. Attempting to rise, he was too 
dazed to moi-e than half sit up. Catching him by the back of his 
coat collar, I lifted him to his feet, took his nose between my thumb 
and finger and lead him to a seat on a stump. 

"Now," I said, "you find that it is not much trouble to control 
your uncontrollable tempar, after all. It is all bc>sh about anyone 
having a temper that cannot be controlled. It is not temper, but 
meanness. Just common, every day meanness. Now I have taken 
considerable trouble to come here to cure you of your meanness, and 
I am going to do it. And it will bs a permanent cure. I shall 
watch yo.i and if I ever hear another bad report about you I shall 
promptly return and give you a bigger dose, even if I have to come 
a thousand miles to get you. AVhen I get through with you I will 
)iot have a chance to talk with you further, and I want to tell you 
in advance what you must do when I am gone. You must treat all 
animals kindly. As a panishment for your abuse of yoiir horse, 
within the next year you must bay five worn and broken down 
horses, give them rest and the best of care until they recover, then 
sell them to men who will hi kind owners, and donate the proceeds 
to charity. " 

The big fellow blubbered and tried to protest, but his nerve was 
gone. Some big, bluffing, cruel fellows are such cowards! 

"Come on," I said. "Your lesson lias but commenced." 

I rolled his trousers above his knees and his socks over his shoes. 
Taking him none too gently by the nose again, I led him to the 
shafts of the sulky, backed him in and lifting a shaft, pat it in his 
hand. Hs commenced to balk at once. 

"Ah, I forgot," I said. Getting the stout cord, I made a slip- 
noose and dropped it over his head and around his neck in spite of 
his struggles. Pulling it snug, I said : 



DEVELOPING HORSE SENSE. 33 

"So j'ou are a balky horse, are j'ou? Well, I am going to lose 
my temper. Really, I cannot control it, " and I gave the cord a 
stout jerk, [lis eyes bulged out, his neck swelled, and his hands 
grasped the ord. I permitted him to hold it, as I only wanted it 
to be threateningly tight. I let him gurgle and twist and squirm 
fur a time and then loosened the cord and asked him how he liked 
it. He did not respond exuberantly, bat seemed to think he ought 
not to balk any more. T.ien when I backed him into the shafts 
and lifted them for him to grasp, he did not hesitate. Getting into 
ihe sulky, with the cord and slip-noose an effective line, I clucked 
and shouted "Get up!" Guess he wasn't sure just what I wanted, 
just like any fool horse would be when a little excited, so he didn't 
move. Then the blacksnake whip came in handy. I gave ^him a 
beautiful cut on the right hind— no, the right leg, but instead of 
starting o'l he kicked. Another swish of the lash, a little smarter 
sting, and he danced along for a few feet. I might have told him 
what I wanted, bat one cannot explain things to a horse, you know, 
except with a whip, and as he halted, I gave him another one on 
the bare calf. He seemed to understand what was wanted that tim^ 
and started off at a good trot, my faithful livery stable horse con- 
tentedly jogging along behind. The pulling was a litcle heavy, but 
encouraged by an occasional jerk of the lino around his wind-joipe 
and the swisb of the lash upon his bare legs, we went bowling along 
<l'Ute merrily. And that livery stable horse was smiling and chuck- 
ling all the time ! 

The birds were still singing in the trees, the sun was still shin- 
ing brightly, kind nature still smiled and made one glad to live, I 
was still humming "Happy Day! Oh, Happy Day!" 

It was two miles to town, but the energetic yanks on the line 
and frequent applications of the blacksnaka where they would do the 
most good enabled one Sam Wenski to find strength enough to pull 
me to town at a very comfortable pace. It was a pleasant ride. 
Fortunately no (>ne was on the road and we attracted no attention 
until we got well within the village. Then there was a hurrah. 
Sam thought he could get help, but a jerk of the line and a touch of 
the whip made him change his mind quickly and we trotted along 
through the main street with people running and gaping and 
shouting to neighbors on all sides. 

At the end of the street was the railroad depot. I had carefully 



34 DEVELOPING HORSE SENSE. 

timeJ matters so that jast as we arrived there a passenger train 
palled in. Thinking my fiery steed would stand without hitching, 
I dropped the line and was aboard before anyone could realize my 
intention, the train i^nlled out, and waving Sam, dear Sam. con- 
verted Sam, a fond farewell, I disappeared from his sight. Like a 
warning ghost from the past, I appeared from nowhere and disap- 
peared forever. 

Yes, I heard from there later. He was cured. He made a 
public statement that he had been a brute and deserved all he had 
received. He promised to carry out my instructions about the 
broken down horses, and doubled the number for good measure. 

Transmigration of souls is not a popular religion but its practi- 
cal application worked wonder-i for one Sara Wenski. 



Benight of the Twentieth Century. 

The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
about the world punishing meanness and rewarding virtue. Falling 
heir to a small fortune, his dream was made real. 



IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 

I had a fanc}' that some farm landlord should be taught a lesson, 
and thinking I would find one deserving of my peculiar course of 
treatment there as well as elsewhere, I dropped into the Texas town 
of M— , a nice little city north of Dallas. The second evening after 
my arrival, I was pacing the depot in watchful proximity to Mr. 
R., one of the meanest and stingiest landlords of this section, he 
having purchased a ticket for Austin, for a week's visit. He was a 
man of about forty, who had inherited his property, and was more 
penurious than his old tight-wad of a father had ever been. 

I had learned that the white tenant on one of his farms had 
been called away by sickness, leaving the farm in charge of a colored 
woman. 

Back and forth, back and forth we paced, until just as the first 
glint of light from the approaching train appeared around the bend, 
we happened to be at the far end of the platform, just where I 
wanted him. Without warning, I crushed a handkerchief over his 
mouth, grasped him about the waist, leaped from the platform and 
hustled across the prairie in the darkness at a two-forty gait. As 
the engine whistled I gave him a chance to breathe— and to yell — 
when I again clasped the handkerchief to his face and made another 
spurt. By the time I was tired we were far enough away that his 
cries could not be heard, and with a warning that I would not hurt 
liim if he kept still, removed the handkerchief from his face. 



36 IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 

"Now, my dear frienil, I have scared you pretty badly, but the 
worst is over and I will frankly tell you all that is to happen to you. 
I am an odd sort of philanthropist going about the countr}^ compell- 
ing people to be good. I have never seriously hurt anybody in my 
life, although I make it temporarily unpleasant. I am not pleased 
with tiie niggardly way you treat the tenants on your farms, and I 
am goirg t(> take you to the river farm and compell you to live there 
a week just as your tenant spends his whole life. It will not be as 
pleasant as the Austin visit but it will do you more good." 

Mr. R. was dazed by the sudden change of liis plans, the chok- 
ing, the swift flight and my rapid-fire remarks, and could only 
stutter : 

"This is an outrage, sir. I will have you up for this, sir. A 
dastardly outrage, sir." 

"Oh, come off with your outrages and your sirs and climb into 
this buggy. We are all entitled to a great many opinions under the 
law, but the fact is that I am about four times as big as you are, 
and I am going to do as I please with 3'oa for awhile. Opinions 
don't count for much just now. Get in!" 

Bat he wouldn't. He stamped and stammered and "sir'd." 

Taking him under the arm pits, I pushed down on him and said: 
"Now jump, little boy. " But the little boy only scratched and 
kicked and yelled. I was only playing with him, and as eas}' as 
most fathers vk'ould handle a naughty five-year-old bo}' I lifted him 
to the seat, stepped in and drove away. 

He fussed and fumed all the way to the farm, a distance of six 
miles, but I didn't mind. When he kicked my shin I slapped his 
face ami told him to be still, but otherwise our ride was entertaining 
and pleasant. 

Arriving at the farm I found Aunt Sally, the colored woman, 
on tip-toe with excitement. I had previously driven out and told 
her of my plans, and found her eager to do her part. "You'se here 
at las' " she exclaimed. " 'Clare to gndness, 1 thought you'd 
never come." 

My guest thought this was a good time to raise another rumpus, 
and although he clambered from the baggy, he commenced the out- 
rage talk again. I saw he needed attention, so taking him by the 
ear I commenced leading him about the place. He kicked and 
objected, but ear "bolt" is a good one if you hold on and he had 



IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 37 

to come alonf? or lose an ear. I varied the monotony by changing 
ears occasionally but I must have kept that foolish fellow prancing 
around for half an hoar bsfore he acknowledged that he had a master 
and had to behave. Some of these grown boys are awful slow about 
learning to mind. 

Then I said : "You parsimonious protege of old satan, I want 
you to understand what you have coming. I am your master and 
you are my tenant. You have held tenant Jones by the ijower of a 
little paper purchased fifty years ago from the state of Texas for |50 
by your father, in the form of a deed for this land, and with that 
power you are making him slave for you year after year. I am now 
ma'^ter by virtue of 270 pounds of flesh and blood, and you must 
slave for me. I intend to see that you get for <:>ne brief week just 
wliat you have given your tenants for years. You shall work as 
they have worked, starve as they have starved, in body, soul and 
mind. If it will teach you a lesson, it will never be repeated. If 
you are too dull to learn in one week, I shall return and make it 
several more. I realize that no amount of argument would have 
any weight in making you see how unjust you have been. All the 
civilizing and moral agencies of today have only served to harden 
3"oi]r heart and make you more and more grasping for every penny 
in sight. Like tlie father who has resorted to every maans of moral 
suasion with a self-opinionated and reballious boy who refuses to 
acknowledge that there is reason for proper authority, justice and 
restraint, there is only left the hope that the spirit can be reached 
through the body. It is therefore the father and the boy to the 
wood-shed. You will not ba punished in that form, but in another. 
We are all figuratively spanked at times by the corrective influences 
of this world, and yours is coming. I do not want to talk further 
with you tonig'.it, and I am sure that you have nothing cheerful to 
say to me. I shall lock you in your bed-room and expect you to 
get up promptly when you are called at 4 o'clock tomorrow morn- 
ing. Those old rags in a corner that you will sleep on will not be 
as soft as your bed at home, but you will be tired enough tomorrow 
night to enjoy it. " 

So I pushed him off to bed, still sputtering, still declaring it to 
be an outrage, sir, still threatening the vengeance of the law, sir. 

Early the next morning, Mr. R. was called but refused to 
res-pond until a cup of water was thrown in his face. He then 



38 IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 

leaped up and wanted to fight, but soon saw the utter hopelessness 
of it. 

"There, there, little Willie," I said. "Be a good boy and papa 
will take him bye-bye sometime. 

"A certain very, very old book says that there was a law laid 
down many, many years ago that man must earn his living by the 
sweat of his brow. Ycu have dodged that law all your life, but it 
is beginning to act. The hard work of millions — yes, billions— has 
contributed either directly or indirectly to your comfort all your 
life, and not an hour's honest work have you given in return. It is 
time for you to do your share, at least for awhile. Steji lively, my 
little man, and ran out and chop some wood and build a fire so that 
Aunt Sally can cook breakfast. I expect to be hungry in an hour or 
two. " 

He went, reluctantly of course, but he went. 

I compelled him to cut enough wood for the day, build the fire, 
and pump and carry in enough water for the day's washing. The 
well was a deep one, and as he was toiling with the pump handle, I 
su:^gested that a windmill was a handy thing to have on a farm. 
Hd gi-unted. 

Then I chased him out to the barn to feed and curry the mules. 
He didn't like the job a little bit. The mules looked and acted 
peaceful enough, and were probably as gentle as kittens, but every- 
thing back of half way from the head got "a lick and a promise." 
Every time he came within reach of the heels he was sciired half to 
death, and kept himself in a tension and ready to jump at the 
slightest movement. 

Then he acted as chambermaid to the stable and pitched manure 
for half an hour. There were no cows to care for, chickens or hogs 
to feed or fruit trees to give a little attention, so we had accom- 
plished the early work by the time breakfast was ready. 

While I was enjoying a cup of high grade coffee with rich cream, 
hot biscuits and honoj', fresh meat and eggs, Mr. R. was set off in a 
corner with warmed-up black coffee, corn pone, bacon and grits. 

"You might let me have a little cream," he whined. 

"Not a drop," I rejolied. "This cream and the ice to keep it 
sweet and the eggs and butter and honey and meat and all these 
good things were brought from town. Your tenant had none of 
them. You Texas landlords are worse even than the tenant squeezers 



IDYL OF THi: TEXAS IDLE. 39 

of thn north in refasins to make it possible to have cows, chickens, 
a garden and trait on the farms. All thesa are for tho comfort and 
profit of the tenants, wliile each requires an outlay of cash on the 
part of the proprietor. For fear care of them might interfere with 
the cultivation of the largest cotton crop possible— a crop that can- 
not be marketed without the landlord getting his share-you are 
willing that tenants shall ^o without the ordinary comforts of life, 
and rob them besides of any possibility of making any more off the 
farm than the barest living. You excuse your stinginess by believ- 
insi that poultry, cattle, vegetables and fruits are hard to raise in 
this country becavise on accjunt of the open winters the diseases, 
pests, mites and bugs of all sorts are reproducing and have been 
leproducing for hundreds of years in such numbers that to fight 
them is hopeless, and the danger besides that the niggers, as you 
call them, and wild varmints will steal everything that can b3 
carried off, but I happen to know that with proper and intelligent 
care, together with a proper supply of houses, pure water and plenty 
of food, all these things could be successfully raised on this farm. 
These things are all absolutely necessary for even cDuifortable living 
on a farm. Anything less is a disgrace to civilization, and n^ou and 
others like you are responsible for these conditions. You could havo 
bail cream tor your breakfast if you had made it possible for your 
tenant to kpep caws. You could have had ham and eggs and fresh 
vegetables if your tenant co.ild have raised them and had them for 
hi" own use. You are living as he lives all the time. Go on with 
you. Eat your corn pone and be thankful. It's the best you will 
get for a week and I hope you will b3 starved into decency by that 
time. " 

Tlie dry meal nearly choked him, but he still mumbled, an out- 
rage, sir, and I smiled complacently, thinking how he had smiled at 
the misery of his tenants year after year. 

After breakfast I hurried him out to hitch one of the mules to a 
plow. There was no riding plow. That was a luxury the tenant 
could not afford, and since the landlord had never followed the 
furrow he had never known the need of one. 

After much trembling and an effort to get the mule hitched by 
reaching from the longest distance po.ssible, we finally managed to 
get to the field. 

Mr. R. did not plow badly for a green hand, although I had to 



40 IDYL 07 THE TEXAS IDLE. 

follow pretty closely to keep him up to Ihe work, especially atter 
the hot sun got to bringing out the sweat in streams. 

All the morning we kept at the work. At noon we stopped, the 
mule was taken to the barn, and there was a repetition of the break- 
fast experience in the luxury and poverty of the dinners. 

After dinner the other mule was hitched to the plow and the 
two of us plodded along, row after row, until supper time, Then 
came the chores. 

When we entered the house, Mr. R. went immediately to his 
room and threw himself on his bed, too exhausted to move. Supper 
was ready, so I went after him. 

To a third repetition of my remark that supper was ready, ho 
replied, "I don't want any." 

"Oh, yes you do. Yon can't work if you don't eat to keep up 
your strength, and you have work to do. Come out here and eat 
your supper. " 

He refused to move. Taking him by the collar, I lifted him to 
his feet and with another hand applied ti^ the looseness of his 
irousers, I made him "walk turkey" to the table. He managed to 
f jrce down a little food and a cup of black coffee, and I parmitted 
him to go to bed. 

The next day and the next were repetitions of this day's exper- 
ience. It was no easy job to follow him all day long, bat I was of 
course standing it a great deal better than he was, since I was in 
tine physical condition and had built up a robust constitution by a 
life-time of work, with athletic practice and with a constant regard 
for the laws governing the physical being. He had starved his body 
of much that was needed to make it well and strong and when the 
test finally came he was in no condition to stand it. 

However, a healthy tired feeling from outdoor exerciss never 
killed anybody, and I was glad he was getting an c^perienco so 
badly needed. 

Mr. R. had been sullen throughout all the experience, never 
having a word to say except to occasionally mutter something I 
could not hear, and when the plow struck a stone or stump use 
language that would not look well in print. There was no sign that 
the trial of the simple life was having a good effect. Not a glimmer 
of the great basic principles of .I'ustica and "do unto others as you 
would that they should do unto you. " Instead, every sign was an 



IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 41 

indication of a wish to escape and a threat of the awful things he 
would do to me when he should be free to employ his wealth in an 
effort to punish me. 

The third evening, as we were leaving the stable to go to the 
house. Mr. R said : 

"Mr. I-don't-know your-name, I am going to beg for one thing. 
I suppose you are going to keep me at this work for a week and I 
cannot help myself. But for goodness sakes, sir, give me something 
to eat. I cannot stand that coarse food any longer, sir, and am so 
weak I can hardly stand up. If you will give me plenty of good 
food, I will promise to do my best to keep up to the work, but if 
yon don't, sir, I shall lie down and you can kill me but I'll not get 
up. " 

"All right, " I replied. "You have had a sample of the food 
supply of your tenant that you will never forget, and I do not care 
to push j'our punishment too far. Hereafter you will eat at the 
table with me. " 

At supper I asked a couple of questions about a neighboring 
farm, thinking the time had perhaps arrived when he was willing 
to get behind the unpleasant experiences with a talk about the con- 
ditions that had brought them about, but he sullenly failed to reply, 
and I gave up any further attempt to draw him out. 

He did full justice to the excellent meal and then went to bed. 

The next morning I called him at the usual time, and not get- 
ting any response, went into his room and found my canary bird 
had flown, flewed, gone, escaped, vanished. 

A little investigation shosved that he must have found a file 
when I was not watching closely and during the night had filed 
through two of the bars I had fastened over his window. 

Fortunately it had rained during the night and an examination 
of the ground outside the window showed his footjirints, and signs 
that be could not have been gone but a fevv minutes. 

Running to the barn. I hastily saddled one of the mules and 
started in pursuit. The tracks led to the road going to town, but a 
quarter of a mile away I missed them, jjicking them up again in a 
freshly plowed field and leading to tlie trees along the river. Like a 
hound on the scent, I followed them at a gallop. Arriving at the 
woods, I found the trees were too close together to permit riding, 
and tying the mule I pushed along on foot. The tracking here was 



42 ■ IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 

not so easy, but runnino; at a good pace I covered most of the woods, 
beating the brush and looking into the trees. Finally, as I was 
giving up hope of catching him and realizing that this time my 
work promised to be an utter failure and it meant u sudden exit; 
from the country for me, and a bitter enemy hunting for me all the 
rest of ray life, I caught a glimi^se of him through the foliage, run- 
ning like a frightened i-abbit. I was in hot pursuit in an instant, 
and as I was much the better runner, I gained rapidly. But by 
(lodging around thickets and doubling, the fellow kept me sj^rinting 
a lively pace for a long time. He doubled back, and during a few 
moments when I had temp:)rarily lost him, he managed to get back 
to my starting place (having seen the mule) and when I saw him 
again he was mounting the mule, having broken oif a branch for a 
whip. I was ready to give up and would have beat a hasty retreat 
from the locality had it not occurred to me that it would leave 
"Aunt Sally" to stand part of the punishment intended for me, 
and started to fullow with the intention of going back to the farm 
house and arranging in some manner for her protection. 

Fortunately for me, Mr R. was too eager to get away, and he 
was no sooner mounted than ho commenced to furiously ply the 
whip. The mule started with a jump, and excited with the whip- 
ping, was plunging across the wet and newly plowed ground. He 
had made scarcely a hundred feet when he stumbled and fell, throw- 
ing his rider to the soft ground beyond. 

Before Mr. R. could recover himself and mount, I was there and 
had him by the wrist. 

Such a pathetic picture ! Covered with mud, beaten, hopaless, 
scared, he was certainly an object of pity. 

"I suppose you will kill me now," he muttered. 

"I should say not," I replied, laughing. "I don't blame you 
for trying to get away. That was your in'ivilege, and I certainly 
will not add to your punishment on that account. My whole work 
with you is to make j'ou a conspicuous example in the correction of 
a widespread abuse and this incident is only the humor of the situ- 
ation. " 

We returned to the house and after a hearty breakfast wore soon 
a^ain at work. The fields were too wet for plowing, but I found 
plenty of other work for him to do and kept him busy all day long. 

The next day we spent in the fields. 



IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 43 

On the morning of the sixth day I was beginning to realize that 
all my efforts had resulted in failure. Mr. R. was more sullen than 
ever, if possible, and there had not been the sliglitest indication of a 
deeper appreciation of the relationship between landlord and tenant, 
nor any attempt at conciliation or suggestive look or expression to 
indicate that his hatred of me would not find the fullest vent after 
he was free. I vv-as feeling pretty glum, myself. The whole scheme 
of my work means that I must succeed. If I fail, it places me in 
the attitudfi of a law-breaker and a brutal fellow^ and I don't want 
to be that, you know. Frankly, I was worried. 

I noticed that after Mr. R, was given good meals his strength 
improved am:izingly, the outdoor work giving him a si^lendid 
appetite, and the nourishing food in return giving him strength 
and health, and forcing the old stagnant blood out of his system. 
Twice I caught him looki.ng around with eyes that, seemed to be 
newly opened to the beauties of nature, and inhaling deep breaths of 
pure ail'. These were the oidy liopeful signs. 

We were again plowing about ten o'clock, this time breaking up 
a small piece of sod. We were jogging along, each deep in his own 
thoughts, entirely unprepared for an interruption, when Mr. R. 
jilowed up a nest of bumblebees. Then there was trouble. The 
angry insects attacked the mule, Mr. R. and myself with a ven- 
geance. The mule ran away, jerking the plow" handles away and 
dragging it along on its side. Mr. R. had the lines over his shoul- 
der and he was dragged along helter-skelter, bumpety-bump over 
the field, part of the time on his feet but most of the time riding on 
his shoulders or nose, the bees meanwhile going with him in 
bunches. I was chasing after him so fast that I ran against a stump 
and fell headlong. The accident freed me from the bees, although 
they had stung me freely about the face and eyes. Getting to my 
feet again, I saw that Mr. R. , the mule and the bees were tangled 
in a mass of underbrush at a short distance. Grabbing a large piece 
of bark that was handy, I ran to them and freed Mr. R. , and the 
active use of the piece of bark as a paddle soon killed or drove away 
the bees. 

Finding Mr. R. was badly shaken up, I tenderly assisted him to 
the house, where his wounds were bathed and rubbed with an oint- 
ment. Leaving him fairly comfortable, I gave attention to my own 
wounds. By this time bath my eyes were swollen shut, and I was 



44 IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 

helplessly dependent upon the ministrations of Aunt Sally. 

The result of the affair was that the next day Mr. R. was able 
to hobble around and I was laid up with closed eyes and a face con- 
siderable larger than its natural size. I was now in the power of 
iny former victim, but recalling how I had saved him from the fury 
of the bees. Mr R. was inexpressibly tender in his care and expres- 
sions of sympathy. No more "it is an outrage, sir." Punishment 
had not converted him, and perhaps never would have done so, but 
comradeship in misery and an enforced living in the home of his 
tenant with hourly opportunities of realizing what comforts they 
never knew, were opening new lines of thought and working a 
change I had planned in a more despotic fashion. It came slowly 
but surely, and the fourth day, both of us having nearly recovered 
from our painful experience, he said : 

"You are right, sir. I thought you was crazy, but you are the 
the most sensible man I have ever known. The past four days have 
been the most wonderful period in my life. I never realized how 
much a landlord could do to improve matters for his tenant, and 
especially I never saw how I could be benefitting myself by benefit- 
ting my tenants. Why, it will be the delight of my life to improve 
my farms. I will be fussing around with imi:)rovements until the 
tenants will want you to come back and drive the old nuisance 
away. " 

Well, we staj-ed at the farm — voluntarily — all the second week, 
and when I left he was superintending and helping to make many 
improvements — among them a windmill — and was having more tun, 
he said, than a tree full of monkeys. 

The evening before I left we had a heart-to-heart talk on basic 
principles. Mr. R. said : 

"I have been penurious toward my tenants, but back of it all 
is a controlling influence that has dominated a large part of man- 
kind in the whole history of the world. I have believed, and it is a 
belief more prevalent in the south than in the north, more generally 
accepted in England and other foreign countries than here, one that 
has been handed down in successive generations since the early 
history of man on the globe, and that is that since there is and of 
necessity must be a vast amount of tiresome, unclean and exceed- 
ingly disagreeable labor to be performed to provide for the comfort 
of mankind, it is best that there be a servile class to do it. We 



IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 45 

have had the theory, for instance, that pitching manure would 
degrade a college graduate, and that his pducation and culture 
entirely unfitted him for that kind of work, and a necessity for 
doing it naturally made him desperately defiant of his conditions. 
Yet manure must be pitched, fields plowed, wood chopped and 
water carried. What mure logical than to have a class that from 
lack of education and refinement would- take an interest, a pleasure, 
a pride in such work? The ignorant man, with hardy constitution 
and muscles trained, inheriting no knowledge of any other life, 
would certainly l)e happier in doing such work than an educated 
man. If this work could be abolished, we would have an entirely 
different line of reasoning, but it cannot, and a vast amount of it 
must be done. There must also be the leisure that permits of culti- 
vation to perpetuate the existence of the educated class, and that can 
only be accomplished by having another and distinct class to take 
from them this necessary drudgery. In the north you have evolved 
an entirely new idea about the 'dignity of labor.' Your theory is 
that a man of education will sow and reap better than an ignorant 
man, and that a reasonable amount of manual labor clears and 
strengthens the brain. I never believed it until last Saturday. Never 
in my life had I felt the bounding pleasure in animal existence, the 
blood coursing freely through my veins, nor the clear brain and the 
liappy^heart that I had the last morning I was following the plow. 
I did not let you .see it, but the mental and physical joy resulting 
from outdoor vv'ork gave me new ideas I never dreamed of possessing. 
I learned a new thing: A moderate amount of manual labor invig- 
orates and exhiliarates the brain. My excuse for penuriousness 
with tenants was the necessity for keeping them down, of perpetua- 
ting an ignorant class, since I deemed that to be necessary. I was 
wrong, A tenant may be an intelligent man and still do menial 
work. He may have the comforts of life and still find pleasure in 
hard work. This I have learned. I thank you for the experience." 
"I follow your reasoning." I replied, "and have long recognized 
the strength and the weakness of it. However, we of the north are 
going too far in in the opposite line of thought. Our colleges are 
turning out graduates by the thousands who despise the menial 
work th-iir parents have done to provide the means for their educa- 
tion, and are thronging the paths to the law, medicine and other 
protessions, only to find them all overflowing. Theoretically we 



46 IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 

worship the higher education because it ought to make better farmers 
and better bricklaj'ers, but practically we are giviug the higher 
education to a horde of the sons of farmers and bricklayers, many 
of whom become foot-pads and shysters in the professions to get the 
means to live in the luxury to which they have become accustomed. 
Your theory that menial labor makes an educated man desperate is 
proving true in a lamentably large number of instances. There is a 
happy medium between the two extreme ideas, howevui. I am glad 
that you have found the happy medium." 

When the busy bee can sting deep enough to reach the conscience 
of a landlord, something is sure to happen. 



g^night of the Tweofaelti Century. 

The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built. 
iMid has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
lienter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Moralitj' that would go 
about the world ininishing meanness. He fell heir to a small for- 
tune, and his dream was made real. 



DOWN IN A COAL MINE. 

Attracted by the appearance of a gentleman on a train in Color- 
ado the other day, I introduced myself. He responded kindly, and 
in the informal manner so common in the west, we soon developed a 
friendliness that under otbtsr circumstances might have taken years of 
intimate association. Ha informed me that he was the manager of 
a certain coal mine, one I knew to be one of the most important in 
the state. He was returning to his home from Denver, v»?here he 
liad been unsuccessful in an effort to get funds for improving the 
hosi^ital in the mining town. He seemed to feel the need of some 
congenial person to whom he could tell his troubles, and I invited 
his confidence by telling him of the special missionary work I had 
taken up and relating some of my experiences. I never had a more 
appreciative auditor, and the bond of good-fellowship was cemented 
between us by his enthusiastic interest. Aftering listening delight- 
edly to my descriptions of several incidents, laughing at the humor- 
ous situations, and showing an understanding and hearty sympathy 
with the motives underlying all my efforts, he said : 

"It is a noble work. I wish I were engaged in something even 
halt as satisfying to the conscience. But I am afraid that I am on 
the other side. If you knew the daily opi)ressions that I seem to be 
responsible for you would probably spend half the night devising 
new and strange tortures for me. Bat I hope you won't. Honestly, 
I am doing the best I can. I excuse many things by knowing that 
another man in my position would not do so well. It is one of the 



48 DOWN IN A COAL MINE. 

un explainable incongruities of fate that a man of my kindly, book- 
loving, domestic temperament should be in control of a large force 
of miners and compelled to be responsible for the practical affairs 
governing their work. A natural gift for the technical features of 
mining, both book-learning and practical, brought me to the atten- 
tion of the owners of these great properties, and despite a natural 
disinclination for a supervision of the practical affairs, these condi- 
tions have come to me. In few matters relating to the individual 
lives of the miners can I do as I want to do. I am doing the best I 
can. " 

"The responsibility for th3 evils in your conditions probably 
lies with the higher authority," I suggested. 

"Yes, it does," he replied, "if it can be definitely located any- 
where. Stock companies are cold-blooded affairs. Enterprises 
owned in that fashion have no one connected with them that dare 
possess human feelings. From the lowest mine boss to the highest 
official the dominant idea is to grind and push and crowd the indi- 
vidual to get every ounce of results possible for the benefit of the 
profits, since the owners havs no other interest than the more or 
less dividend they receive. The owners are merely stock-holders, 
owners of mine stock today, railroad stock tomorrow, mortgages 
another day.. They have absolutely no regard for the property or 
the employes except to draw interest. They have no mercy, nj com- 
passion. They have no more interest in the individual lives of the 
workmen than they have in those of the coral insects building an 
island in mid-ocean. I sincerely wish you could do something to 
change these conditions. Can you?" 

Well, well, hero was trouble again. I was beginning to think I 
was having the experieiice of the boy in the second reader who ran 
away from school to avoid work and found soldiers and musicians, 
carpenters and masons, in fact, everybody was working, and giving 
up in despair returned to his work. So I tind oppression everywhere 
and a need for my peculiar course of treatment. 

"You know I am like a patent medicine manufacturer who be- 
lieves his preparation will care all the ills to which man is heir," I 
said. "I have but one remedy for the abases that have grown up 
under our industrial and legal systems, and that is to reach the men 
who are in position to correct them and influence their minds 
through their physical bodies. Correction of these matters is being 



DOWN IN A COAL MINE. 49 

attemptetl time and time again with writing and teaching and 
moralizing, but the evils continue to exist. The spirit and flesh are 
closely allied. Sjmetimes the spirit can be influenced only through 
the flesh. The creative intelligence of the universe recognized that 
as the primary law, and we can but be helping to carry out princi- 
ples as universal as the law of gravity in working out the smaller 
ideas in that fashion. The poor, half-blind miners who are im- 
prisoned in darkness all the day only to go to homes but little less 
dirty and wretched are surely entitled to much consideration in a 
world theoretically based on brotherly love, and perhaps we can do 
something to improve their condition. Who is the man who can 
best be influenced to change things for the better?" 

"Colonel B., a pompous old Brooklyn millionaire," was the 
prompt response. "At present he holds nearly all the stock. By 
the way, he is a colonel by campaign money purchase of a position 
on the governor's staff:. He inherited a vast fortune and has in- 
creased it immensely. He is coming to the mine tomorrow for a 
visit of inspection. I dread it principally because there will proba- 
bly be nekV ordeis, as usual, for increasing restrictions on the privi- 
le<;es of the men, and a general shaking up to secure a greater out- 
put, with no consideration of the other needs of the situation. I 
have never known a man who vvas so indifferent to the small matters 
of justice and fairness between emjjloyer and emi^loye. I am work- 
ing for him, but frankly I cannot respect him." 

I suggested that if it were arranged that the Colonel and I would 
be lost in the mine for a day or two he would get an experience that 
might do him good. 

Plans were so carefully laid that the following day when the 
Colonel and myself accompanied a party through the mines we were 
seemingly lost in an abandoned working. Realizing the situation, 
the Colonel shouted until he was hoarse. I also shouted, but having 
a frog in ray throat, could not make much noise. 

"Confound these blamed mines," stormed the Colonel. "I 
should have known better than to come into one of them. I hate 
them. They are dirty and dangerous places, and no human being 
should go into one of them. " 

"But, Colonel," I said, "some poor fellows must labor in them 
every day, never seeing the light of the sun except once a week." 

"Pough!" said the Colonel. "Nothing but a lot of drunken 



50 DOWN IN A COAL MINE. 

vas^ibands. Not human beings. The first thing most of them do 
when they have a chance to get to the sunlight is to get so intoxi- 
cated they cannot see eitlier companionship) or the sunlight. Pough ! 
Cattle! If they would save their money they would nut need to 
work long in such a place. We pay good wages. " 

"How much money have yoa saved, Colonel?" I had learned 
that the) Colonel had inherited great wealth and of course had never 
denied himself anything to save a dollar, and what took the point 
from his argument, much of his money had been spent in placing 
himself in the condition he dejilored in the miners, of being unable 
to recognize either friends or sunlight. He recognized the double 
question in the one, and actually blushed until a glow of light was 
cast ou the dark walls of the room. Even the hide of a rhinoceros 
can be punctured if one hits hard in the right place. 

To be brief, the rest of the party had gone beyond the reach of 
our shouting, and we stumbled and searched and shouted through 
the deserted chambers hour after hour for twenty-four long, long- 
hours. Our miner's lamps lasted only a few hours and for all the 
time afterward we were fumbling around in the dark. It was hot 
pleasant for me, but I am willing to endure hardships if good may 
come of it. Bfisides, I had a lunch and plent}' to drink, although 
the Colonel knew nothing of it and got non3 of it, and I knew the 
way out and could have gone out at any time, but the Colonel had 
the misery of believing us to be hopelessly lost and starving. 

Exhausted by his efforts and misery, the Colonel fell down on 
the hard ground and went to sleep. 

Thinking this a good time to get some fresh air, I left the mine, 
carefully locking the door to the chamber holding the victim. 

It seemed cruel to leave tlie poor fellow alone so long in that 
black chamber of horrors, but every time I thought of the indiffer- 
ence ot mine owners to the fate of the poor men who are compelled 
to spend their whole lives in tiiose dark, dirty places I took an extra 
hitch in ray conscience and stayed away an hour longer. As these 
thoughts recurred twenty-four times, it was just that many hours 
later when I returned to the mine. 

I found a raving maniac. The Colonel was shouting and tearing 
about the chamber, climbing up the side, falling back, beating the 
hard wall with liis fist, stojiping to throw chunks of coal at supposed 
demons or chasing frantically from side to side to escape them. He 



DOWN IN A COAL MINE. 51 

was so far gone that he diJ not recognize me hy the dim miner's 
lump I carried, and kept alternately det'yini^ and runnin;; from the 
creatures of his disordered mind. 

"Well," I thought, "this is going too far this time. It was a 
case calling for heroic treatment, but maybe I have overdone it." 

The Colonel paid no attention to my soothing words, so grabbing 
him around the shoulders in a manner to pinion his arms, I carried 
him to the main shaft and we were soon hoisted to the mouth of the 
mine. There was no one about except the manager, who was wait- 
ing for us. When we reached the open air I still held the Colonel 
in my arms, soothing him with quieting words and giving him a 
stimulatins drink. Gradually the iiaunted look disappeared from 
his eyes, and he returned to a consciousness of the world about him. 

"I thouglit you had left me!" he exclaimed. "Oh, horrors! 
And the rats came in and nibbled and nibbled and nibbled and I fled 
from them and ran my head against a wall. Oh, what a time! Are 
we safe? I am so hungry. My, what an exi^erience ! No, I never 
!^av(!d anything. I never had any pity for the poor devils that had 
to work in the mines, and all the poor devils who had worked and 
suffered and died and were drowned and blown up in the mines 
turned themselves into real devils and burned me with red-hot coals 
and laughed and jeered until I thought I was crazy. Oh my, Oh 
my ! It was awful !" 

Greedily taking the food and drink I had brought, he devoured 
it ravenously. Fearful that he would harm himself, I insisted upon 
his resting while I brought water and bathed his face and hands. 
Refreshed and re.stored to his right mind, we started for the home 
of the manager. Before we had gone half the distance wo were 
a center of interest tor half the town. The Colonel was a fright, 
[lis clothes were torn in strips, and he looked like walking coal dust 
more than a man. I had washed part of the dirt from his face, but 
his hair and beard were filled with the black dust, and streaks and 
furrows were left across his features in all the directions of the com- 
pass and then some. 

The manager could have provided a closed carriage to meet us, 
but we had figured it out in advance that this public humiliation of 
the Colonel would have a good effect. Of course our victim had no 
suspicion as yet that we were responsible for his awful experience. 
The manager had kept searching parties iu the mine, and had raised 



52 DOWN IN A COAL MINE. 

ix great hullabaloo over our disappearance. Of course he knew 
where we were all the time. 

Well, the Colonel was taken care of, and wa? none the worse 
mentally or physically for the dreadful experience. 

The conspirators were very much in doubt about the result, 
however. We had not thouglit it best to explain our part in the 
affair but were hoping that the awful experience would impress its 
own lesson. 

The Colonel gave no sign. Not a word, until four long days 
later at the nsual dinner given to the heads of the departments on 
the eve of his departure, he arose to make a speech, as was cus- 
tomary at that time, when he said : 

"You all know the frightful ordeal I have passed through on 
this visit, and I have reserved this occasion for saying that it was 
the most blessed experience of my whole life." 

Here the manager reached under the table and pinched me until 
I almost howled with pain. 

"I went into the darkness and found the light," the Colonel 
continued, as the stir ot interest subsided to eager attention. "In 
the shadow of the grave I saw the hollow mockery of the life I had 
been leading. The question of our friend, 'What have you saved?' 
repeated itself over and over. 'What have you saved? What have 
you done?' the demons shouted. 'What have you saved? What have 
you done?' the countless millions of reverberations echoed. The 
awful horrors of the darkness, of the real and imaginary imps of 
terror, injpressed me with sympathy for the unfortunates who delve 
in such places to earn bread for themselves and families. For the 
first time in my life I tasted the sweets of sympathy for human 
suffering and for a time that dark cavern was lighted with a blessed- 
ness and peace I had never known. Then I went to sleep. When I 
awoke I missed my companion and the horrors that followed are 
indescribable. However, the terrors are over, the memory of that 
exaltation that came from the mere feeling of sympathy for the 
oppressed, remains. I am glad to have had the experience. It has 
broadened my life immensely. It has developed an interest in my 
tellow-men I had never thought worth the having. Those few 
blessed moments of peace and happiness when, surrounded by dark- 
ness and horrors, the mere sympathy for others brought light and 
love and faith and peace to m3, were worth more than all the other 



DOWN IN A COAL MINE. 53 

experiences of my lifetime. Su ricbij' do I treasure those few brief 
moments that I must have more of them. So earnest am I that if 
sympathy for suffering humanity will bring them, I shall educate 
myself to such sympathy that I shall overflow with it, shall radiate 
it in all directions, shall force it upon others in a Niagara of abun- 
dance. As an earnest that the sympathy shall be real and perma- 
nent, I now announce that from this moment this entire property 
shall be held in trust and operated solely tor the benent of the men 
who work the miijes. Every dollar of profit sliall be devoted to im- 
prove the condition of those who by force of circumstances are com- 
pelled to toil amid the darkness and dangers of this pit of the 
inferno." 

A hush followed, then enthusiastic applause. The sweet light 
in the Colonel's eyes, the radiating countenance showed that he had 
found more of that wonderful peace and happiness. 

"But with all this new-found love for my fellow men, and a 
pleasure in doing my share toward making the work of miners le.ss 
distressful, I want to be practical," the Colonel cjntinued. "We 
a-e paying goad wages. I shall not increase them. It is not the 
wages but the system that is wrong. It is based upon, once a 
miner, always a miner. It is a dreadful thought that in commenc- 
ing work in a mine a man sentences himself to a lifetime of exclu- 
sion from the blessed rays of the sun, from the comforts of a good 
liome. from all that makes life worth the living. Yet someone must 
do this work. Humanity must have coal, and at the best it is dan- 
gerous and horror-inspiring work. Heretofore all the influences 
have conspired to surround the miners with conditions that give 
them no hope of escape from this work after they have commenced 
it. We have encouraged miners in drunkenness and gambling in 
Older that their wages would be soon spent and that they would be 
forced to return to a kind of work that they would never do if they 
were not in desperate need. We have been short-sighted. 

"I learned one most important thing in that awful darkness. 
I barned that the miner's craving for liquor is a purely physical 
demand, so great that his intelligence could have no influence on his 
conduct. At times when I was in that pit of darkness the craving 
for liquor was maddening. I cared nothing fur the sunlight, friend- 
ships, home, any of the comforts and enjoyments of healthy living. 
All I wanted was drink, drink, forgetfulness, oblivion. I can now 



54 DOWN IX A COAL MINE. 

readily understaml why so many miners coming to the ligiit of day 
care nothing fur those things they seemingly shoald have missed the 
most, and take a straight cut for a saloon. It is a tremendous physi- 
cal impulse, and the conscience, the mind, all the good imi^alses are 
swept before that demand like chaff before a gale. The miner is 
therefore not to be blamed. It is for us who ai*o in responsible posi- 
tions and who have our intelligence in control to arrange conditions 
to take care uf these men when they are under that physical craving 
and let their work result in ultimate good to them, instead of doing 
what we have dune, acquiesce in their yielding to those physical 
cravings in order that they may the sooner be without money and 
forced back to underground toil. 

"Hereafter there will be no liquor within reach of these mines. 
There will be no gambling. The homes of the miners will be made 
as comfortable as possible. We shall pay no money, bat shall pro- 
vide for every comfort of the miner and his family, if he has one. 
No man will be employed here who will stay less or longer than 
thiee years and use the work as a means uf accumulating enough 
money to start him in some employment in the sunshine and in the 
pure air. To those who want to become farmers I will give special 
opportunities. At the end of three years, at the wages we have 
been paying, thf3 miner will have about $1500 with which he may 
es;ablish himself in some other line of work, a sum that has heretofore 
gone into the hands of the saloon-keepers and their hangers-on. Plis 
place will be taken by some penniless man who can afford to waste 
three years of his life in the darkness to establish himself in the 
light. We will help these men to help themselves, using this tem- 
porary ill that brightness and happiness may come. 

"I have said that we vvould not increase wages. That is true. 
It is more important to prove that a mine may be profitably run on 
this system than that a few men may take the profits. I hope that 
this new system will be so successful in making profits that every 
other mine owner will be anxious to adopt it. In that way great 
good will come to humanity. And I believe the profits will largely 
increase. The one fact that lightens any hardship is a date for 
definite release. We will have sober, willing, cheerful miners in- 
stead of driven, hopeless, morbid men, many of them recovering 
from sprees. The result will show in the output, and therefore in 
the profits. 



DOWN IN A COAL MINE. 50 

"At the same time, as I have said, I do not need the profits of 
this mine and am willinji; to devote all of them to the betterment of 
the men who work it, as a thanksfj;iving offering for the change in 
my own oi)inions and consequent exultation in a happiness that I 
never dreamed existed in this workl, but these profits will be spent 
on them after they leave the mine. 

""I thank you for your kind attention. Let us drink a toast to 
the success of the new system. Let us drink it in pure, sparkling 
Vv'nler, the greatest gift of the natural world to the spiritual man!" 

It is needless to say that the toast was responded to with un- 
bounded enthusiasm. Every man present felt that a load had been 
lifted from his conscience, that his work henceforth was to be a 
pleasure and an inspiration, that petty oppression and encourage- 
ment of vice was to be no longer his daily employment, no longer 
a burden on his intelligence and conscience. 

Beautiful flowers are born and open their loveliness in the 
bright rays of sunlight, but the most beautiful flowers of all, the 
flowers of patience, gentleness and kindness, blossom only in the 
caverns of miserv. Such is the law of the universe. 



Knight of the Twentieth Century. 

The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatiovis car- 
penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
about the world punishing meanness. He fell heir to a small for- 
tune, and his dream was made real. 



THE THIRD DEGREE. 

I was sitting in the office of a friend the other day, waiting for 
him to return, when he came in. 

"Whew !" he said. "I have been having the dadbingest time ot 
my life. Done more work than I have done before since I carried 
the hod. " (And that was a good many years before. ) 

"Well, what have you been doing now?" I asked. 

"You know I had a mortgage on a lot of small machinery and 
office furniture in the Saika building across the street. The fellow 
skipped out and I had to take possession of the stuff under the mort- 
gage. He owed me all the stuff was worth, as I had it on my hands 
and sold it on a small cash payment. When I went after it the 
landlord came in and refused to let me use the elevator to bring it 
down because the tenant owed him $20 rent. He demanded that I 
pay it, or we could not use the elevator to get the stuff out of the 
building. Well, it made me pretty hot for him to attempt to hold 
me up to pay someone else's debt, and I hired a lot of men and we 
carried it all down three flights of stairs. And that landlord stood 
around grinning like an ape and threatening to sue me for damages 
if we injured the stairs! Whew, but it was a job!" 

"I have known that landlords do that, " I said, "and suppose 
some tin-plate lawyers have told them they have the right to do it, ' 
or they would not take the chances of damage suits, but it is not 
right. If there is any legal paper in existence that ought to have 



THE THIRD DEGREE. 57 

the fall protection of the basiness world, it is a mortgage, properU' 
recorded. From tlie verj' nature of the basiness done with mort- 
gages, the man who holds the moatga^e cannot be expected to keep 
daily watch over the property or upon the debts the mortgagor may 
be contracting. He has no legal right to do so, even if it were 
practicable. The man to whom the debt is owing should .iudge of 
the extent to vv'hich he can give credit. There is no secrecy about a 
mortgage. It is a matter of public record. And every man who 
gives credit does so with the full understanding that property in 
evidence is more often than otherwise covered with a mortgage. 
To take advantage of an innocent party to force him to pay another's 
debt is an outrage. Either mortgages should be abolished entirely, 
and that would disruijt our whole commercial system, or they should 
be given protection by all honest men. The elevator was a semi- 
public service and it took the property into the building with the 
holder of the mortgage having no possible interest in the matter. 
As a matter ot fact, the refusal of the use of the elevator to remove 
it was as much a stealing and secreting of the property as if the 
landlord had really removed it, and that would be a penitentiary 
offanse, although I suppose there is a legal quibb'e that makes the 
one technically an offense and permits the other. If the machinery 
had been too heavy to be carried down the narrow and winding 
stairs T suppose you would have surely been held up.'' 

"It's an outrage, " said my friend, "and I vt'ould like to get 
even with that bald-headed rooster for it." 

"Well, let's get even with him. and make an example of him," 
I said. "Not entirely because it is a personal matter, but here is 
one little thing that is wrong, and perhaps we can correct it. This 
man Brown — that's his name, isn't it?— Does he ever stay in his 
o.Uce alone at night?" 

"Yes, on the last night of every month ho works in the office on 
the seventh floor — you can see the window over there— alone. Prob- 
ably balancing up the month's basiness and making out bills. I 
have seen him many times when I have, remained at the office to do 
the same thing. About the only satisfaction I see that I can get 
out of him is t-j sit across here and make faces at his window." 
"And this is the last day of the month?" 
"Yes, but I do not feel much like working tonight." 
"Brown has not had as strenuous a day, and probably ho will 



58 THE THIRD DEGREE. 

be at work. I will sa\' good-bye no»v, bat will see you tomorrow 
and perhaps I will then have something amusing to relate." 

About eight o'clock that evening I was in the Saika building, 
and as I climbed the six flights of stairs to the office, I noticed that 
none of the tenants were about, the engineer in the basement evi- 
dently being the only person in the building except Mr. Brown. 

Reaching his office, I walked in and he glanced up from his 
work with startled surprise. 

"Who are you and what do you want here?" he exclaimed. 

With a quick movement, I was at his side with a hand over his 
mouth and another holding him tightly in the chair. "If you will 
])romise not to make a noise, I won't hurt you. I merely want to 
let you knovv that I will stand no foolishness. Will you promise?" 

To the best of his ability he nodded assent. 

Releasing him. I took a chair within reach, where I could sup- 
press any attempt to make a noise, and said : 

"I won't hurt you seriously if you will behave. But I happened 
to hear that you tried a^ain today to work that old fraud of making 
one man pay another's debts, and I am going to punish you for it. 
The punishment is not as severe as what you will get if you try to 
evade it, and my advice is for you to take your medicine like a 
little man. You have got it coming." 

"What do you mean, sir? This is an outrage. Get out of this 
otJtice. I don't know anything about anybody paying someone else's 
debts. I guess you are after the wrong man." 

"That is just what we called it — an outrage. Yes, you do know 
all about it. I mean preventing a man from removing mortgaged 
l^roperty that your elevator brought into this building unless he 
paid a debt that another man owed. ' ' 

"Why, that's nothing. My lawyer told me I had a right to do 
it. All the landlords do it. We are not running our elevators tor 
every Tom, Dick and Harry that wants to use them.'' 

"Perhaps not, but your elevator brought that property to the 
floor on which it was located and took and placed it where the 
holder of the mortgage could not have access to it without using 
the same facilities. I am not enough of a lawyer to know whether 
you are in the right from a legal standpoint or not, and suppose you 
are, but it is a hold-up game morally, and if the law permits it the 
law is wrong. 



THE THIRD DEGREE. 59 

"I have no personal interest in this matter, but happened to 
learn of the hard work a mnn had getting his property out of 3'our 
bailding, and have taken a notion to let you know what climbing 
up and down stairs means. Perhaps then you will not do it again." 

He started to scream, but my brawny right was between the 
collar and his neck in an instant and the scream became a gutteral 
choke. "None of that, now. Come on, " and I yanked him to his 
feet. "Give me your keys. " 

He did so, reluctantly, of course, and sputtering. 

" Take off your shoes. " He did so, reluctantly and sputtering. 

Taking a chair from the office, with a hand on his collar I 
pushed him out and half pushed and half carried him down the first 
flight of stairs. 

"Now," I said, sitting down in the chair I had brought along, 
"j'ou have probably heard that in giving the third degree to crimi- 
nals the chief sometimes makes them run up and down stairs a few 
times to take the stubbornness out of them. I do not often copy 
from others, but it seems to me that the poor fellow who toiled up 
and down stairs today would rejoice if he could know that you>had 
also done so, and I am going to copy other methods just thi'a'6l1<i;e. 
Now run up to the top of the stairs and come back quickly. The 
door of the olKce is locked, and don't forget that I can reath 'yoii 
long before anyone can come to help you it you shout, and if I have 
to come I will do things to you. ' > 

"I'll make you sweat for this sometime." 

"Perhaps so, but you are to do the sweating first. Start!" 

He started. Presently he came down. Now, once again ! And 
be a litte quicker this time." 

Again he made the round trip. 

"Now hustle up and back twice, just as fast as you can. Hus- 
tle!" 

He hustled. "That was fine! Do it again. •' 

This time, just as Brown was rounding the corner on the return 
trip, he noticed that my attention was temporarily diverted, and 
throwing a leg over the railing he came sliding down with the force 
of a catapult, slamming against me with a thud and throwing him- 
self over my head and part way down the next stairs. With the 
quickness of a cat he was on his feet and astride the next railing/ 
headed downstairs and howling like an Indian. 



60 THE THIRD DEGREE. 

I was dazed for an instant, but quickly realizing it would never 
do to let him get away in his then frame of mind, I also straddled a 
railing and tore along after him ! 

Say, mister that was a race! Flight after flight, the game a 
flight ahead, and the hunter wishing his trousers were greased so 
that he could go faster. Gee! What wouldn't you give for a 
picture of my 270 pounds of bigness 'sliding down the bannisters?' 
The spurts were short, the curve in the middle necessitating a 
slowing up, and at each landing it was 'off again, on again, gone 
again.' Occasionally I would catch a glimpse uf Brown's red-striped 
socks or his bald head glittering in the semi-darkness, beckoning me 
on to greater speed madness. It was a hop-skip-and-a-jump affair, 
slowing up and spurting, but it was faster than running down the 
stairs, and neither of us dared give the other an advantage by 
adopting the more dignified method of descent. At the third floor 
I had a little good luck and gained on him. At the bottom he was 
only half a flight ahead, with the fifty feet to the door for a sprint- 
ing match. I struck bottom on the fly, and such a run as I made 
for him ! And at the door I caught him. He was still yelling, but 
fortunately no one had heard him, and I soon stojiped that. 

Back to the top we labored, and back to his tread-mill job went 
Brown — up and down, up and down, up and down. 

Perhaps I kept him at it longer than I should, but that runaway 
flight had got on my nerves and I could afford to take no chances 
cm less than his utter humiliation and acknowledgment that a pun- 
ishment of some kind was deserved. 

I kept that bald-headed rooster chasing up and down those steps, 
the sweat streaming from his face, limping and foot-soro in his 
stockinged feet, until he was pleading and begging for mercy. 
When he could stand it no longer and threw himself at my feet and 
implored me to let him off, I concluded that the small offense had 
met with perhaps too much jjunishment. 

Raising him up and permitting him to sit on the stairs, I said: 

"You knew that j'ou was taking a wrongful advantage, did you 
not?" 

"Oh, yes, of course. Us landlords have frequently discussed the 
matter, and while we knew it was taking advantage of an innocent 
party, we saw in it a way to get our money and were willing for 
the other fellows to take care of themselves." 



THE THIRD DEGREE. 61 

"You landlords have extraordinary laws in your favor, anyway. 
Why are you not content with that!" 

"We cannot always keep all our floors rented and we sometimes 
have to take chances. If we can make the other fellov^ pay we do 
it. Any way to get the money. " 

"This a matter in which j-ou will not again attempt robbery. 
These particular incidents do not come frequently, but there are 
othfr matters in which landlords rob tenants and others under cover 
of their peculiar legal privileges. If I ever hear of your doing any- 
thing of the kind again I shall call upon j'ou again, and 3'ou will 
think the affair of tonight a pink tea party in comparison. More 
than that, I insist that if you do not want another visit from me, 
you will either fight out in the courts this matter of lack of protec- 
tion of mortgages by landlords until it is decided against them or 
have the law amended if there is one covering the matter. I confess 
that I do not know where the matter stands, but I do know it is 
wrong. " 

"I will promise never to do it again," said Mr. Brown, "but I 
do not know what I can do about influencing others. You are 
right, of course. It is plain robbery, nothing less, and a disruption 
of accepted business conditions that would lead to anarchy if the 
incidents were not rare and usually trivial. We excuse it because 
others do it. It would cost a good deal, however, to do as you 
saggest, and while I agree that the landlords are wholly in the 
wrong in this particular thing, I would not like to bind myself to 
a responsibility for doing anything except to pocket my own losses." 

"You have an entire floor vacant just now, have you not?" 

"Yes." 

"What rent do you ask?" 

"Two hundred dollars a month." 

"Any prospect of a tenant!" 

"No " 

"Could you work up any enthusiasm over the suggestion I have 
made if I were to find you a tenant?"' 

"I would make a conscientious effort to do something. I cannot 
work up enthusiasm about anything just now. I need the money 
badly. I have had some big losses lately. A fire destroyed two of 
my residences, and hard luck seems to have bunched itself from all 
directions at once. I have bsen thinking the experience tonight was 



62 THE THIRD DEGREE. 

the last straw ' ' 

"You poor fellow !" I exclaimecl. "One never knows the other 
man's troubles till he gets behind the mask. I have felt that the 
punishment tonight was too heavy for the light offense. ["Gosh ! I 
should say so !" ejaculated Brown.] I started out for a lark," I 
continued with a smile, "and your dash for liberty nearly turned it 
into a tragedy. Let us now make it a comedy. I happen to know 
a man who wants just such space as you have to rent, and I will 
have him see you tomorrow. If you secure him as a tenant, he is a 
good fellow and will help you carry out this other matter. Then 
my night's work will bear good fruit. Let us go now. I will walk 
upstairs this time and get your shoes and hat. " 

Brown was pretty sore, but was sensible, after all, and the pros- 
pect of securing a badly needed tenant helped him to recover his 
good nature. 

The business world is full of men vv'ho are really good fellows 
bat perpetrate the most outrageous robberies and frauds because 
"they all do it." 

The next day I called at Brown's office with the friend who had 
the day before so strenuously carried the stuff down stairs. He had 
previously told me that he had been figuring upon renting this floor, 
as he needed larger quarters. In fact, he had intended to tell Brown 
to fix up the lease the preceding day when he went after the prop- 
erty, but Brown talked first with a demand for the $20 that the 
tenant was owing, and he declared to himself that he would not rent 
from Brown if he never found a place to suit him. Relating to him 
the adventure of the preceding evening, he was put in good humor 
over the affair, reflecting that Brown was doing only what all other 
landlords considered they had a right to do, and gladly went with 
me to close up the lease. When this was done. Brown turned to me 
with outstretched hand, saying : 

"I want to shake hands with vou. I doubted your sincerity last 
night when you said you had a tenant for me, and went home feel- 
ing pretty sore, physically and mentally. I started inquiry this 
morning and when I learned that you were the Knight of the Twen- 
tieth Century I threw up my hands and said to myself that I might 
as well take my medicine like a little man, as you expressed it. 
You have too many friends for anyone to attempt retaliation. And 
besides you are doing a splendid work. I urn sorry to have been a 



THE THIRD DEGREE. 63 

victim, but I agree that some victim was necessary to stop a wrong, 
even though it was not a great one. ' ' 

We shook hands cordially, and Brown has sincerely turned him- 
self into an amateur Knight to carry out our intention to correct 
this particular wrong. 

I don't want the job of punishing all the landlords for all the 
mean things they do. I don't expect to live more than a hundred 
years, and I could not possibly be in a thousand places at once. 



Sisiight of the Twentieth Century. 

The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
about the world punishing meanness. He fell heir to a sirall for- 
tune, and his dream was made real. 



A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 

Nearly every man has a special friend who is nearer and dearer 
to him than all other men, with whom he can share the sorrows, 
hopes and sometimes absurd ambitions that the individual must 
hide from the world at large. It is this inner and secret conscious- 
ness that determines all the important decisions and actions of life, 
and I pity the man who has no close friend in whom he can confide 
and with whom he can take counsel. It is seldom that three such 
friendships can bo found at one time. Yet many years ago, so many 
that it makes me tired to count them, there worked in the same 
carpenter shop with me, two other young men, Jim B. anli Bob R. 
We were ambitious young fellows, each industrious and saving and 
each hoping to accumulate sufficient funds to make a start in a 
higher line of employment than pushing the plane. We worked side 
by side and were almost inseperable out of working hours. In all 
tilings we sympathized v\'ith and helped each other in the thousand 
and one details that make up a present saving and sacrifice for 
future benefit. Jim B. was a',small man, with a heart in him too 
large for an elephant. Bob R. was almost as large as I, and a 
whole-souled, generous, clean-minded gentleman in carpenter's over- 
alls. For three years we labored and saved and planned together. 
Jim's ambition was to start with a little store and become a mer- 
chant. Bob had a natural genius for the study of medicine and 
wanted to become a physician. I was more visionary, and hoped 
to "strike it rich" with the invention of a mechanical contrivance 



A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 65 

I had worked out on paper successfully, and as there was "millions 
in it," I was anxious to get enough monej' ahead to work out the 
idea in cold steel. We had each acquired a savings bank account 
sufficient to enaljle us to give up daily work and attempt to realize 
our ambitions at about the same time. I put my time and money 
into the invention which did not invent but did use up all my capi- 
tal, and returned to the carpenter's bench, where all these years I 
have plodded along, making a living only, and dreaming of the 
many, many things I would like to do. This was my life until I 
inherited a little money, and now I am having fun with it. 

Bob realized his ambition and was successful from the time he 
won his diploma, and has for years owned a most successful sana- 
tarium in an eastern state, where rich people who are troubled witii 
cranky action of the brain are "l)oarded. " If they were poor people 
it would be an insane asylum, but being very, very rich, or having 
rich relatives, they boarded at a "sanatarium. " However, rich 
people suffer from mental ailments as well as poor people, and it is 
an honorable business to provide a home for them, and Bob has won 
the success he deserves. 

But poor Jim. He had barely four hundred dollars to start 
with, and bought a small notion store in a suburban town. By 
hard work and perseverance he managed to increase his stock to a 
value of six hundred, but getting married aboui that time and the 
expenses of a family coming along in increased ratio as the years 
pas!^ed, he was never a nearer realization of his ambition to become 
a great merchant than to measure off a few j-ards of goods at a time, 
always only one lap ahead of the hungry wolf. He was a cheerful 
little fellow, however, and his family was the delight of his life. 
He never had any money for the usual luxuries of men, but denied 
himself all other pleasures in the greater one of providing for the 
comfort of his family. It was hard pulling, too. Sometimes he 
would have enough money to meet his bills when they came due, 
but it was usually after they were due and when they had to be 
paid. So ran the years. A little fluctuation, but most of the time 
with hard work and honest endeavor barely making a living. 

I had a letter from Jim. The end had come. The daily fight 
between income and outgo had been won by the outgo. The pendu- 
lum of fluctuation swung a little too far, one creditor became im- 
patient, and the modest original saving and his small stock of 



m A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 

goods were quickly sacrificed in bankruptcy proceedings, and poor 
Jim faced the world with a family of children and his means ot 
a livelihood gone. He wrote to me for funds to tide him over until 
he could again find employment as a carpenter. 

Of course I sent him a liberal check and told him to rest and not 
worry for a month, and I would come and see him and we could 
easily arrange that he would not have to go back to the bench, at 
his age. Blessed is money! It comes in mighty handy sometimes. 

Indiscriminate charity does more harm than good, but after a 
man has done his best and failed, what then? 

A paragraph in his letter said: "You know that soon after I 
was married, in a burst of self-confidence and affection for my new 
wife, I permitted an agent to talk me into ten thousand dollars life 
insvirance. It looked pretty good to me then, a's it was an endow- 
ment policy, and I figured it would be a good way to save money, 
and if anything should happen to me the family would not suffer, 
while if I stuck to it I would pull out in the end with enough 
to keep me the balance of my life, even if I should fail in every- 
thing else. I did not figure on the demands of my small business 
and the positive needs of a growing family. I kept up the big pay- 
ments on this policy for several years, when the money was sadly 
needed to add to the stock of goods upon which I was depending 
for a living. Then I cut down to $7,000. Later another cut to 
§5,000. Later another to §2,000. It was the payment of the prem- 
ium on the latter that took the money that should have gone to the 
creditor who forced me into bankruptcy. As I look back and think 
of the benefit the premium money v^^ould have been to me in my 
business and how I drained myself of cash so sadly needed to keep 
that going and improving, I feel pretty sore over letting that agent 
of the long ago talk me into it. This was the only luxury I ever 
permitted myself. I don't smoke, drink or gamble, and it don't 
cost me anything to swear, but I hung on and contributed those 
payments year after year in th'i hope that it would be all right in 
the end, and this is the end ! I honestly believe that if I had denied 
myself this one luxury and put the money in the business — ^I was too 
ambitious to do anything else, but the insurance gamble catches 
men who have no other bad habits— the increasing stock each year, 
even though little, would have brought increasing prosperity and 
today I would have a good business and a means of earning the 



A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 67 

supijort of my family. Now I am a beggar!" 

A hard story that. Yet it has its duijlicates by the thousand. 
The American people are insurance gambling mad. They insure 
against every possible danger, present and prospective, and the pay- 
ments bring a disaster that they insure— but not against. 

This incident recalled the many discussions I had held with my- 
self on this insurance gambling evil, but I had never been able to 
think of any way of working out a remedy. No one is forced to 
buy insurance. Agents are sometimes very persuasive, but it stops 
at that. The individual has a free choice. And I don't see that 
the agents or the officials of the campanies are to be blamed. People 
want insurance— lots of it. They cry for it like babies cry for 
soothing syrup, and it would not seem right to visit any of these 
insurance peddlers with punishment, and probably no good would 
come of it if I did. One could not correct a whole nation of the 
gambling spirit by spanking one man. 

However, this is all preliminary to a little fun I had last week. 
I had not seen my friend, Bob R., for several years, and while I 
did not feel the need of his sanitarium treatment (although SDme 
people think I should) I decided to make him a visit. I spent 
several days with him, and we certainly did have a good time, not 
only in recalling old times, but Bob is an up-to-date man and a most 
congenial companion in all that makes up good-fellowship. Of 
course I related my experiences as a modern Don Quixote since I had 
last written tn him about them, and we enjoyed many a good laugh 
ovor them. On the evening of the fourth day he said to me : 

"I must go down to the city tomorrow, and as my superinten- 
dent is away for a few days there is no one to leave in charge. I 
would not care particularly, as the help is competent and trust- 
worthy, but Judge K., president of the Superb Life Insurance com- 
pany, is coming tomorrow to visit a cousin who is here for treat- 
ment, and I ought to have someone in seeming authority to lend 
dignity to the situation. Will you be kind enough to do so by 
posing as superintendent for the occasion?" 

"With pleasure," I replied. "I don't suppose he will quiz 
abont the technical features of your business, and I can pat up a 
pretty big bluff if he does. " 

"No fear of that," replied Bob. "He comes every month for a 
short visit and will probably have very little to say to you." 



Od A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 

I was glad that Bob did not see the smile that lighted up my 
countenance just then. It flashed upon me that the stage setting 
was perfect for a comedy with an insurance man as a star actor, 
hat I did not want to get Bob into any possible trouble by sharing 
in advance the notion of the wild scheme that came to me at the 
instant. If anything should go wrong we could both swear that 
Bob had no knowledge of my intentions and should therefore not be 
held responsible. 

So I concealed the smile with a fictitious yawn, and soon excused 
myself to retire and think of the things I would do to the insurance 
man. 

With all my thinking I could not find a solution for the insur- 
ance problem or locate any single individual whose punishment 
would have the slightest bearing in correcting the evils that are so 
closely interwoven with so much that is good. It is over-insurance 
that is principally the fault, not the insurance principle. 

However, it seemed to me that this visit of one of the shining 
lights in the insurance world was too good an opportunity to be 
lost and I decided to have some fun with him on general principles 
and let the results take care of themselves. I also decided that since 
I did not know what I wanted in the matter of resuKs or could 
locate the individual who was properly the scape-goat. I would stir 
up the insurance man lirst and then talk the matter over with him 
when I was sure that he would at least be in a sei'ious frame of 
mind, duly impressed with the possibility that other things might 
happen to him. 

The next morning, Bob called the employes together and ex- 
plained that I was to bo in charge for the day, and instructed them 
to follow any directions that I might give, and especially to impress 
the visiting Judge K. that there was a responsible official in charge. 
All the employes knew me and the special missionary work upon 
which I had lately been engaged, and without its being intended 
by Bob, these instructions nicely paved the way for what followed. 

Soon after Bob departed I called the employes together again and 
told them they were njt to be surprised at some of my actions dur- 
ing the visit of the Judge. If perchance I was found to hd "running 
amuck" they were to try to keep up the illusion, and in no event to 
seek to interrupt me. They showed an appreciation of the possibili- 
ties of the situation and retired Vv'ith broad grins. 



A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. ' 69 

About ten o'clock the Judge arrived. Of course he was a 
Ijompous old fellow, with side whiskers, else why should be be 
called "Judge?" He recognized his own importance, all right. He 
bad success written all over bim in letters a foot wide. Not success 
from calloused bands, but the manicured variety. Money success. 
Dollars. Coin. Gold. Hard gold. 

I did not meet bim as the superintendent, but was peeping out 
of a front window. Persuant to my instructions, one of the office 
men met him and escorted him to the room of his cousin. I retired 
to a cell .and finished sawing through several bars of the grating 
between it and the corridor, and having cleared away the evidences 
of this preparation, sat down to svait for the rising of the curtain 
and my cue for the spot-light. 

After perhaps a half hour, I saw the office man and the Judge 
coming slowly down the corridor. As they were passing my cell, 
which the Judge knew to be in the incarable ward, I made a roar 
and jumped against the iron bars. They gave way, and the two 
men took to their heels, witli me after the Judge, grovviing savagely, 
altbousb careful not to make a noise that would arouse the inmates. 
And the Judge flew! His hat dropped off and his hair stood up like 
a pompadour. His long coat tails flapped in the breeze created by 
bis swift motion. His dignity dropped from bim in an instant and 
his fat legs pattered down that corrider at a great rate. Ha was a 
pretty good sprinter when be was scared. At the end of the ball 
was a door leading dovvnward, but it was locked, and I was so close 
behind that the Judge did not hesitate an instant after finding it out 
but started upstairs. I was after bim so close that I reached out a 
hand to grasp him and stumbled and fell. The Judge didn't stop- 
be didn't even hesitate. To the top he flew, with the supposed 
crazy man a few jumps behind. Then through a long corridor to 
the end and down the back stairs, the pursuer just missing bim 
again. I bad planned to give the Judge a lively chase through 
these two floors, but as we neared the door in the lower corridor an 
attendant came in and before 1 could shout to stop him the Judge 
bad brushed past him and was oat and leaping do»vn the stairs, four 
steps at a jump. But I was after him. On the next flojr was an 
attendant. He took one look and fied. On the next floor was 
another attendant. As the Judge passed him be bowled for bim to 
stop me. The attendant pretended to try to do so, but I bowled bim 



70 A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 

over and sent hi in sprawling, the wild-eyed Judge glancing back 
just in time to see his hope of help vanishing. Here was the door 
leading to the street, but it was locked. 

By this time the Judge was thoroughly frightened and was 
panting and sweating at a tremendous rate. The attendant's inter- 
ruption had permitted him to gain a little, and he wasted valuable 
seconds trying several doors to rooms, but they were all locked. 
Then another rush, this time upstairs to the second floor. Here was 
a reception room, but I was too close for the Judge to try to close 
the doors. Across the room the Judge made one flying leap, to the 
big front window, with his shoulder he broke out the pane of glass 
and was out on top of the porch, and throwing himself over the 
edge, dropped to the ground before I fully realized his intention. 
But I was after him. Through the broken window I went, and off 
the porch, landing solidly a few feet behind the victim. It was 
then a straight race and the Judge had no chance. I caught him 
and after a short struggle held both his arms behind him by the 
wrist?, faced him toward the entrance and said: "Forward, 
march !" 

Not knowing what else to do, the Judge marched. The door 
was opened by one of the attendants, and into the building and into 
the office we marched. Releasing the Judge, 1 told him to sit down. 
I told the two men in the office to retire until I called them, and 
then I threw myself into a chair and laughed one of ray big, big 
laughs. "You're it!" I said. "You're it!" 

"All right," said the Judge, still believing I was an escaped 
inmate and thinking he could get away if he humored me. "I'll bo 
It, now you run and let me catch you," at the same time keeping 
an eager eye on the door beyond me. 

"You'll be It, all right,'' I replied, "but we won't run any 
more. We will try another game. It will be a puzzle game. It 
will be puzzle, puzzle, where does the insurance money come from? 

"I am not one of the inmates," I continued, smoothing my 
hair, wiping the perspiration from my face, and trying to Jegain a 
look of sanity, "bat an old-time and warm personal friend of Doctor 
Bob, who left me in charge of the sanitarium today while he made 
a trip to the city, and I staged a comedy for your benefit and be- 
cause there is a motive of tremendous importance behind it. I want 
to say that Doctor Bob is not in any way responsible for it, and if 



A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 71 

you have any resentment it should bo all for me, as the doctor did 
not dream that I would try to play any of my pranks with one of 
the patrons of his institution. However, it will come out all right. 
You and I will be good friends after the sense comes from behind 
this seeming insanity. I am a professional correcter of abuses, and 
as you represent a system that is full of them, it is my desire that 
we get our heads together for their consideration with a soul-stirring 
earnestness that could never be brought about in the ordinary 
methods of meeting. My guess may be wrong, and you may have 
nothing but stiff resentment for this informal introduction, but I 
believe you will meet me half way in an appreciation of this little 
comedy and that nothing less than such a whirlwind would have 
swept aside the selfishness, priggishness and formalities of ordinary 
business and social intercourse and enable us to get to a heart-to- 
heart talk as if we had known each other ail our lives." 

At first the Judge stared at me, then as it slowly dawned upon 
him that I was not insane, he sank into a chair, mopping his face 
with a handkerchief, and a sickly grin overspread his countenance. 

"Say! Are you Bob's friend that he calls the Knight?" 

I acknowledgcid that I was. 

"Sure! And if I had not been so badly scared I wouLl have 
known it. Bjb has shown me your picture and he never tires of 
telling me about the fun you are having, and incidentally praising 
the good you are doing. I have been in full sympathy witii your 
work and would have been delighted to have made your acquaint- 
ance in the ordinary way. 

"However," he continued, and another grin came over his face 
as he remembered the undignified bat comical experience of a few 
moments before, "I doubt if I would have given much attention to 
any erfort you might make to indues me to take up a reform in insur- 
ance circles. We are all ready to say 'Go it, old boy !' when some- 
one else is to be corrected. Our own pet affair is different. But 
you have given me such a shaking up that I haven't any dignity 
left to stand on. All I feel like doing is to helplessly ask what you 
want me to do.' ' 

"I don't know," I replied. "That is the worst of it. I see a 
great evil. I see suffering and hardshijDs and wrongs, and don't see 
any way to find a remedy or any responsible head. I do not know 
what to do or what can be done. This matter has laid heavv on 



72 A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 

my heart for a lonK time, and I saw no light. When I learned that 
you were coming today, I decided to organize a general mix-up 
legardless of consequences and see if something would result. It 
was like shooting at a squawk in the dark on the chance of hitting 
u chicken thief. That you have taken this hilarity as it was in- 
tended is a cause for congratulation. It seems ridiculous, but after 
all, as you say, this matter has affected you in a personal way and 
that makes it a personal matter. I usually suggest a line of pro- 
cedure to my victims and follow it with a threat that if they do 
not follow my wishes I will come again and again, but I have noth- 
ing of the kind to say to you. If I have made this a personal mat- 
ter vvfith you, I am content." 

"Thank you," said the Judge. "I feel better, and with careful 
nursing ought to be able to sit up and take nourishment in a day or 
two. " 

"But this insurance gamble is a serious matter," I continued. 
"Here is one instance. A very near and dear friend of both Bob 
and myself has wrecked his life, or would have done so had I not 
been able to provide him with funds. " I gave him the paragraph 
in Jim's letter to read. 

"This is only one of thousands of cases. Few people realize the 
toil, the suffering, the denying themselves of the comforts of life 
that is represented by the millions piled up in the keeping of the 
insurance companies. Much of the money paid oat on the rich 
man's insiirance gamble by his heirs cashing in a million dollars 
of insurance payment is wrung from the toil and sweat, dollar after 
dollar, of poor people, who make sacrifices innumerable for it. The 
princely salaries of the officers, and the generous commissions of 
agents and sub-agents mean millions of hours of toil over wash- 
tubs, in the hot glare of the blast furnaces, the dark dangers of the 
mine. And what do these poor people get in return? Protection? 
No. The profits and these vast expenses come from lapses. The 
insurance is taken out and carried when the insured is in good 
health and easy financially. It lapses when old age, disease and 
financial reverses come. The rich man gambles, and wins. The 
jioor man gambles and loses. Of course there are many instance!? of 
the payment of insurance monej' to poor people and it comes as a 
welcome relief in a time of distress. But an enormous per cent of 
the money paid in goes out in other ways. And the worst of it is, 



A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 73 

nearly every dollar (if it is blood-money in the starving, the slaving, 
the self-denial that comes from sparing a part of daily wages, all ot 
which is sadly needed for decent living. " 

I was growing quite enthusiastic and very earnest. As I paused. 
Judge K. looked at me intently, a merry tv>^inkle came to his eyes, 
and he threw back his head and laughed heartily. 

"My dear friend," he said, "you have only been paddling 
around the edges of that great ocean of rottenness. Your friend Jim 
is a drop of water just running from the -sjoring to the edge of the 
vast sea. And it is a mess of rottenness and corruption. I could 
tell you of murders committed, children strangled, wives and 
mothers and daughters selling their souls to got money to carry to 
the feet of the dragon god of this monster cess-pool. Families separ- 
ated, men and women and children starved, jails filled, gallows 
bearing their gruesome fruit, nil, all sacrificed to the fiendish lust to 
gamble, gamble, with human life at stake and human souls the 
price. Fire insurance represents all these horrors and the added 
ones of arson and perjury, crimes perpetrated successfully and crimes 
found out and punished. That four-fifths of the fires upon which 
insurance is demanded occur between 2 and 5 a. m., when naturally 
there should be fewest fires because there are practically none about 
who by carelessness can cause them, no machinery moving, no 
lights or fires burning, tells a tale (if its own. But the evils I have 
suggested are not all. The accumulated moneys are a corruption 
fund that i^ermeates every avenue of political life and debauches the 
elected servants of the people. And it does not stop there. The 
vast accumulated funds are u.sed as cash resources in the greatest 
game of stock gambling the world has ever known, where savings 
as well as trust funds and the stealings of unfaithful employes are 
enticed into the big net through the advice of staid brokers and 
respectable bankers, and all added to the avalanche of money that 
grows and crushes more and more as its weight increases. 

"Suicides, murder, arson, betrayal of trust, jailbirds, starva- 
tion, poverty, failure, wretchedness, wholesale debauchery, thesn 
are synonyms of the word insurance. Ah, if you could see what I 
have seen, if you could know the inner secrets of this business— the 
bad side of it, I mean — you would wonder vvhy an outraged justice 
has not crushed the whole earth because of it. 

"And if you will permit me, T will take you to see part of the 



74 A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 

fruits of this business. You have seen only the edge of this black 
ocean. Come with me and I will show you the dead men's bones 
that lie buried there. Will you spend tomorrow with me in the 
city?" 

"Indeed, I will, with pleasure," I said. 

"At the same time," the Judge said, "I am like you in that T 
do not see a remedy. The insurance principle is a good thing. It 
is the faults in the system that bring the terrible results we see. I 
don't know where to go to mete out punishment, if punishment 
could bo given. It is a great hydra-headed monster that has grown 
up in man's relation to man that has nO sponsor. It is one of the 
great influences of the universe that like the waters of the sea may 
be pure and health-giving and in an instant turned to poison or 
given the destructive force of a tidal wave. I have realized all 
these evils, vastly more than have you, good Sir Knight. But what 
can one man do, and what can two men do? We might as well try 
to dip the ocean dry with a spoon ! 

"But I must be going now. Come to my office tomorrow at 9 
o'clock and I will repay your comedy with tragedy — a tragedy that 
will make you sadder, but if it will have the same effect that the 
comedy has had on me, it will mali^e you a wiser man." 

And I promised. 

The next morning I was in his office promptly at the time ap- 
pointed and after a few moments of social chatting he pushed a 
button and directed that a Mr. G. be sent to the office. 

Mr. G. entered and was introduced to me as an adjuster for the 
corajjany. He was a shrewd, wirj' man, with the brightest eyes I 
ever saw in a human head, and half closed at that. Judge K. said 
that upon arriving at the office the day before he had explained to 
the adjuster that I had a particular reason for seeing the bad side of 
the insui-aiice business and he was to select as large a list of cases 
as could be investigated in one day. He wanted the cases where 
disaster came either directly or indirectly from carrying insurance. 

The three of us were soon whirling away in a big automobile. 

After a time we reached the tenement district and found our 
way to one of them. 

The door was opened by one of the sweetest faced boys I have 
ever seen. The recent burial of his father had brought about a 
cleaning up of face, clothing and house that was evidently not ordi- 



A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 75 

nary, but I was thankful that I had an unobstracted view of that 
winsome face. The mother, in widow's weeds, was in the room 
when we entered, and two daughters, one about ten and the other 
about twelve. The adjuster introduced himself and stated that the 
object of the call was to secure the necessary evidence upon which 
to pay the insurance. 

The widow greeted us elfusively and immediately began pouring 
out a tale of trouble. 

She said that she was so giad that they were looking after the 
mutter promptly, that they were in sad need of money. The hus- 
band, who had been killed by an elevated train, had been out of 
work for t\vo months and every dollar of money and cj'edit had been 
exhausted. They were subsisting on the three dollars a week the 
elder daughter was eaining, the mother's eyes being so poor she was 
not able to do much in the way of earning maney, although she had 
always helped some. 

The adjuster asked: "Your husband had been quite despondent 
lately, had he not?" 

"Oh, yes," replied the woman. "He was nearly crazy because 
he could get no work. All our money was gone and all we had to 
live on was the three dollars a week that Millie earned. 

"I know the insurance premiums were all paid, " she continued 
fagerly, "for the money Tom got the night he was fired was used 
to pay the insurance. I know- that's all right. And you will pay 
me the money promptly, won't you? We need it so badly." 

With a few more inquiries, we left, the adjuster telling her that 
the matter would be given attention. When we reached the auto- 
mobile, the adjuster whispered to Judge K. : "Do you Vv'ant him to 
know the whole truth?-' » "Yes," was the reply. 

Turning to me, the adjuster said : 

"But the widow will not get the insurance. It is known that 
the man who was killed was despondent and drinking. It is claimed 
that he fell off the platform at the elevated station and was acciden- 
tally killed. It is our business to never pay out a dollar if we can 
help it. We will contend that it was suicide, and will find some- 
where two witnesses who will swear that they saw him deliberately 
throw himself in front of the car. The street railway company is 
also interested to the extent of wanting to avoid a damage suit, and 
since their political influence and ours elected the j idgs who would 



76 A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 

try any case against us, and elected the men who will select the 
.iary, there is little chance of having to pay much if anything to the 
widow, even if she could raise the money to keep the matter in 
court eight to ten years. Her case, anyway, would be taken by a 
cheap skate of a lawyer, who could be reached with fifty dollars if 
we did not choose to employ these other agencies." 

'"Gee, whiz!" 

The next place was in a thirty dollar a month flat neighborhood. 
We were ushered into a flat bearing every evidence of clean and 
healthful living. It was modest bat comfortable. A gray-haired 
lady welcomed us, apologizing for the absence of her husband. The 
lady was dressed in black, and although her face was kindly, it 
showed many evidences of mental suffering. The settlement was to 
be made in this instance with the jiarents for a son, who had carried 
$5,000 endowment policy insurance on his wife, who had recently 
died, and the same amount on himself. The adjuster explained that 
he had merely called to leave the check and take her receipt for the 
amount, and the formalities vvcre soon gone through with. As she 
signed the receipt, the lady, who had seemingly been suffering great 
mental agony, burst into tears, and we left her with her head bowed 
to the table, sobbing bitterly. 

Reaching the automobile, I suggested that the lady did not seem 
to appreciate the prompt payment of the money. 

"Her son is serving a five year term in the penitentiary for 
stealing money to keep up the policies, and the wife died of grief," 
was the laconic reply of the adjuster. 

We next went to a part of the city where I was glad it was 
broad daylight and two eminently respectable men in comj^any with 
me. » 

The party to be interviewed was one of the denizens, and she 
was also given a check and signed a receipt. As she handed the 
leceipt to the adjuster, she turned to a colored servant and said : 
"Hustle in a couple of bottles of champaign, quick." 

"I want you to have a drink on me," she said to us. "Getting 
the money to keep up the premiums brought me iiere, and now I 
am going to have a merry time and a quick one. Bill was a merry 
old soul, and I am sorry he is gone, but it looked too good to me to 
be a rich widow sometime and Bill found it out. I am the rich 
widow, all right, gentlemen, and here's a hip, hij), hurrah, for a 



A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 77 

merry widow time!" 

\V(! tried to refuse the proffei'ed treat and upon our insistence, 
after she had opened one bottle, she banded the other to the adjuster 
with a wink and said: "Perhaps 'the nice gentlemen don't like to 
drink in a lady's presence. Take this along and give them a chance 
at it when no one is looking." 

After leaving the hoase some distance behind, I said to the 
adjuster: "If you don't care particularly for that bottle, I wish 
yoj woald give it to me." 

"Certainly," he said, and did so. 

Asking the chauffeur to stop, I gut out of the automobile, walked 
to a telephone pole, and smashed that bjttle into a million pieces. 

Not a word was said by any of us. 

The next stop was after a long ride to the suburbs. It was the 
home of market-gardeners, foreigners, but of what nationality I do 
not know. An old man had died on whom $1,000 had been carried 
by two surly and ignorant sons. The father had taken out insurance 
early in life, the life policy only, and had managed to keep up the 
pi'emiums until a few years before, when he had become old and 
lielplass and his sons recognizing that he had not long to live, were 
supporting him and paying the premiums because it would surely 
sjon come back to them. 

The adjuster demanded the right to make a thorough examina- 
tion of the premises. He stopped longest in the bed-room formerly 
occupied by the father. A pane of glass was out of the window and 
the hole was covered with a thin cloth. The father had died of 
pneumonia. 

"How did the glass get out of that window?" the adjuster asked. 

"It was broken by a boy throwing a ball," replied one of the 
sons. 

There was every indication that the pane of glass had been 
deliberately removed from the window, and the adjuster made a 
thorough search of the premises. He found what he was looking 
fur, a pane of glass of the right size. Bringing it in. he fitted it to 
the window, and called my attention to a streak of paint that went 
across a corner of the glass and over the wood work of the window. 

"A plain case of deliberate removal of the glass to bring about 
a cold, probably also invited by lack of clothing and partial starva- 
tion," said the adjuster. "We will not try to convict theai of 



78 A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 

murder, although they are guilty, b;it since I have taken possession 
of this pane of glass they will not even make a claim for the insur- 
ance. " 

The next case vi-as a parallel in its history with that of my 
friend Jim, although the man did not have a friend to help him 
out when he failed. He returned to the work of a brickmason, was 
(lid and unaccustomed to exposure. He caught cold, became ill and 
died. This occurred so promptly that there had not been time for 
the insurance policy to lapse, and the $3,000 came as a life-saving 
benefit to the widow and children. Bat the husband was dead. 

The automobile whirled us to the factory district. As we were 
entering a squalid flat building, the adjuster said: 

"It is not a part of my work to investigate the causes of lapses 
in payments of premiums, but I prepared for your benefit a list of 
names in a small district here where a quick investigation can be 
made. I know nothing of either. " 

The adjuster introduced himself to a slatternly-dressed Vv'oman 
who answered the door and she invited us in and with much voluble 
effusion took us to a bed upon which an elderly man was lying, 
helpless from illness and age. The man was suffering from paralysis 
and could not even move his head without assistance. His brain was 
clear, however, and when the adjuster said he came to investigate the 
cause for the lapse in his insurance policy and to sae if it were not 
pjEsible to have it renewed, his eyes brightened wonderfully and a 
glad, glad smile came over his wan face. 

"Oh, thank you, thank you," he said. "I did not expect any- 
thing of the kind, because I did not know there was any system for 
lie^ping the reinstatement of such policies as mine. Bat you will 
do something, won't you? You will do justice to me, won't you? 
After all these years, starting with a policy of -^j.OOO and growing 
at different times to an aggregate of $100,000, then falling back by 
stages of $5,000 and §10,000 at a time to the last $2,000, and then to 
even lose that at the last, when it is all I have to keep me from 
being turned into the street, is hard, hard. Oh, if the mind would 
only die when the body becomes helpless! 

"You will do something, won't you? It can be reinstated, can- 
not it? Then this good woman who is keeping me from death in 
the streets, since the overcrowded hospitals refuse to take me, will 
take care of ms until I die. Poor woman, she has paid the premiums 



A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 79 

and taken care of m6 for three j-ears and it will be hard for her to 
lose everything. She will not let them go bj' default again. She 
will work her fingers to the bone before she will do so again. She 
t\'a«, sick when the last one should have been paid. But she won't 
do it again. You will let me be reinstated, won't j'ou, pleases 
Judge? I know you. Yes. And you know me. Thirty years ago 
I was the .judge on the supreme bench in this state to whom you 
gave twenty thousand dollars on an assurance that a certain decision 
would be rendered of vital importance to the insurance companies. 
Y<!)u paid me that money, Judge. And that moment in my career 
marked the beginning of my downfall. In twenty years I was in 
the gutter. It was hard, Judge, after standing so high. But, oh, 
how I have hung onto that insurance! Part at a time it waS 
dropped, and at the last I was guilty of every petty theft to get the 
price of the premium. But you will reinstate me. Judge, won't 
you? For old times' sake. Judge, do this for a man who is down 
and out. " ■ ' 

After we left, the adjuster said: "Of course he will not be re- 
instated. He is a dead dog in the pit We used him when he had 
lighting strength, but it is him for the carrion pit now." 

The Judge said nothing. 

I could think of a hundred things to say, but said nothing. 

At the next place we found almost equally poverty-stricken con- 
ditions. The woman had been paying the premiums with money 
earned over the wash-tub doing work at small jorices for people who 
were in but little better condition. A son had been arrested for a 
petty offensie and the premium money had been used to keep him 
out of jail. 

Tl)e next place the wages of a fourteen-year-old boy had been 
depended upon for the policy money. He stayed out late one night, 
was sleepy and caused an accident the next day, and was fired. 
Rake and scrape as best they could, they were not able to raise the 
money. The insurance lapsed. The father was old and sickly and 
of course new insurance could not be taken out. 

But why continue a recital so unpleasant? I had the nerve to 
stay with the investigations until late in the evening, and each was 
but a repetition in a new form of the long, long struggle to pay the 
premiums only to lose when there was a prospect of realizing on 
them in the time of need, or a resort to crimes unspeakable in an 



#- 



80 A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 

attempt to secure the stakes in the great gambling game. Surely 
the Judge had properly expressed it when he said it was a great 
ocean of rottenness. 

As the evening grew late, the Judge asked me to go home with 
him as his guest, and arriving there we agreed that we were too ti7'ed 
for a discussion of the experiences of the day, and that it would be 
taken up the following evening, after our minds could have time to 
become clear and the depressing effect of the day's events be par- 
tially worn away. 

The next evening in the library of the Judge's palatial home, 
we were ready for a discussion of the great insurance problem. 

"Let us waive a discussion of the conditions as we know them 
to exist, " said the Judge. "The experiences of yesterday are too 
fresh in mind for a revival of their horrors. We are agreed that the 
evils are great, but where is the remedy? 

"I have thought on this subject deeply and earnestly," he con- 
tinued. "I believe I am a just man at heart. I have done my part 
in this great game, but have had the ever ready excuse that the 
conditions are here, one man cannot change them, and I may as 
well be a beneficiary, since it matters not who are the beneficiaries 
and who the victims, the system goes on. But, honestly, I have 
wished that I might do something to clear my own conscience of 
these matters. I would long ago have exploited a plan of my own 
had I not feared the ridicule of my associates. I was afraid that I 
wouhl lose my dignity, and that has been very dear to me. I lost 
my dignity very suddenly the other day when I was being chased by 
a mad man, and I find I am getting along very comfortably without 
it. In fact, I never realized the tremendous weight of pompous 
dignity I was carrying around until it rolled away." 

Here the Judge deliberately arose, crossed the room and picked 
up his "plug" hat that was lying on a table, walked to the center 
of the room, placed one foot on the rim of the hat and with the 
other gave a kick that tore a hole through the silk "dignity" and 
knocked the top to the ceiling. 

"No more dignity for me, " ho said, again seating himself. 
"Never, no more. Call me Bill. For twenty years I have been 
adding layer after layer of egotistical complacency and pompous 
'dignity until I had a weight as heavy as the armor of olden times. 
So gradual was the growth that I didn't realize it. But it was 



A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 81 

thrown off, and having made a new resolve this raornino;, I have 
today especially felt a freedom and self-respect that I have not 
known for years. It is blessed to be just a man ! 

"In regard to changes in insurance conditions, however," he 
continuei], "this is what I have had in mind. There should be a 
general law passed prohibiting more life insurance than §2,000 to be 
carried by one individual. That is a sufficient amount to carry out 
the proper and logical benefits of insurance, especially if paid-up 
policies were made easier. If the individual can provide definitely 
for help in the time of need by paying for the insurance when he is 
in good health and easy financially, practically all the evils will be 
corrected. I do not know that our weak efforts against all the 
wealth massed in defense of the present system could be of any 
effect in securing such a law, but that is a good theory, whether it 
can be worked out or not. 

"In addition, I believe in old age and permanent disability in- 
surance, and I am now ready to use my wealth and influence to 
head a company on that plan. I believe that a modest sura paid to 
sach an insurance company would effectually provide against poverty 
in old age and sufficient help in cases of permanent disability. In- 
stead of the premiums being scattered over a great many years, 
embracing the years of the decline of mental and physical vigor, 
the policies being paid in full in the early vigor of life, there would 
be no chance of a failure of benefit when the need comes. No matter 
how much wealth one may have in the vigor of manhood there is 
now no assui-ance that it will remain when old age comes. The 
mental faculties weaken with age, and fortunes disappear quickly 
under the condition of mental weakness but egotistical confidence in 
its vigor. Even where rich men have taken out paid-up policies for 
large amounts in the hey-day of their prosperity, they are usually 
of no avail because they are hypothecated somewhere on the down- 
ward path. What is needed is insurance that cannot be hypothe- 
cated and that costs so little that the individual can pay it in full 
and have the matter effectually settled and where the insui'ance can 
he called for in time of need. Such a company could have homes 
for the care of the insured in old age or in cases of disability. It 
could be part of its policy to pay a small weekly sum in cases where 
it is not desired to go to the homes. 

"I believe such insurance would bo safe and profitable on a 



82 A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 

premium of say ?100 for a child, $200 for a yonth, and $300 for a 
man or woman in early life, with a higher rate as the age increases. 
I believe that 65 years could be placed as the age limit. These 
sums, pitiful in comparison with those now being jjaid, would effect 
ail the benefits that can be expected from the insurance princii^le. 
Onl3' a small per cent would be cared for by the pension insurance, 
but what a consolation it would be all through life to know it would 
be ready if needed, and what a blessing if the rieed came ! Those 
who pay and receive no money back would care for the exceptional 
policy holders who receive in the end more than they give. Old age 
pensions are becoming more and more the spirit of the age, and I 
believe the insurance business will eventually adopt the idea to the 
abandonment of all other insurance except a limited amount for the 
benefit of dependent persons. At least, I have decided to head a 
company on that plan. What do you think of the idea?" 

"Fine!" I said. "Fine! You have evolved a possible solution 
of the great question. May you be the instrument of the intelligence 
that rules the world, and makes the destiny that shapes our ends, 
working through man with man, and may you be raised to a com- 
manding position as the man of the hour, another Washington, to 
correct widespread conditions in order that man may be happier and 
wiser !" 



Great oaks from little acorns grow. Perhaps a few moments of 
imitation madness will cure a widespread insanity. 



B^nigait of the TwerivietSi Ceratury. 

Tlie Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
I'enter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
about the world punishing meanness. He fell heir to a small for- 
tune, and his dream was made real. 



ALL ABOUT A LITTLE BUOOM. 

I had occasion to ma^e a tiip through the west and sto^jped in 
my pilgrimage at the leading hotel in the town of E— . I had heard 
much grumbling about the lack of proper service at this hotel, but 
as it was the only supposedly first-class hotel in the place, I was 
forced to go there. The next morting after my arrival I was look- 
ing about for a small broom to brush some of the dust from ray 
clothes. Not finding it, I asked the landlord, a gruff old man, for 
one. He looked about for a time, without finding it, and said: 

"I guess you will have to get the boot-black in the barber shop 
to brush your clothes. These traveling men put my brooms in their 
grips and carry them off as fast as I can buy them." 

I don't get angry easily, but I know something about traveling 
men, their honesty and the hard lives they lead, and the coarse 
remark aroused me to a fury I have not known for many a day. 
Too great, perhaps, for so small an incident, but I could not help it. 

"Don't you dare to use that kind of language about traveling 
men to me," I said. "I am not one of them, but I know that as a 
class there are no men more honest, none as wrongly treated and 
none as careless of thesir own comfort or more carele.ss in their own 
expenditures. I would bet my head against a doughnut that no 
traveling man has ever carried away even one broom and that if you 
have lost any it is because of the shiftless mismanagement of this 
hotel that has become a cau.se of comment from one end of the 
country to the other." 



fe4 ALL ABOUT A LITTLE BROOM. 

"I don't need any advice from you about bow to run my hotel, " 
he retorted, with anger flashing from his eyes. 

"Yes, you do," I sair], "and I am going to give it to you right 
now. If you don't like it and want to fight I am ready to fight you 
either physically, mentally or financially. Thank fortune, I do not 
have to stay in this town longer than another hour and I can get 
along without your old hotel for that time, but you have insulted 
every traveling man, unjustly, maliciously and with absolutely no 
provocation, and I am going to tell you what I think of it." 

He sized me up physically and evidently thought he woald get 
the worst of it in any kind of encounter, and settled bask into a 
chair and had nothing to say. 

"You happen to have the only building in this town constructed 
for hotel purposes. Traveling men must i:)atroniz3 you whether they 
want to or not. You are sitting around in idleness making a living 
off the money you rob from them. You cannot permit yourself to 
he tied, down to even act as day clerk, bat must needs have someone 
do youi' work and have a host of honest people waiting on you 
b'jsides. Because this building gives you a monoi^oly. you are in- 
different to whether you give proper return for the money you 
receive or not. Not only do the traveling men support you in idle- 
ness, but you have a wife who never does an hour's work heavier 
than to flash the diamonds on her fingers. You have two grown 
(laughters whose cliief industry is to drive out of an afternoon in a 
carriage that has been washed by other hands and with a horse that 
has been curried with some other human being's honest work. You 
are paying the lavish expenses of a son in college. You have two 
other children attending the public schools. Seven of you are living 
in idleness, served directly by the hotel employes and indirectly by 
the labor of millions of human beings bought with the money of 
the traveling men you insult and despise, and not one of you is 
adding an hoar's honest work to the world's aggregate, in return 
for all this. You are all parasites— taking, but giving nothing in 
return. 

"The traveling man pays |300 a year merely for his food and a 
place to sleep, a sum greater than that earned and spent by the 
average head of the average family of five persons, having a home, 
a piano, a horse and buggy, clothing, and all the comforts of social 
life for each of these five people. And he gets in return— what? 



ALL ABOUT A LITTLE BROOM. 85 

"Yoa rob the traveling man in innumerable ways. You charge 
him fifty cents for a meal not as good as any restaurant in town will 
serve for twenty-five cents, anrl a meal for which you charge the 
town people and farmers only twenty-five cents. The cigars at your 
counter are so dr^" from lack of attention that a better one can be 
bought across the street for five cents than the traveling men buy of 
you for a dime. The barbcu* in your shop charges fifteen cents and 
one across the street gives a better shave for ten cents. The boot- 
black gets a dime and the boy outside your door gets five cents. 
The daily paper is sold in your office for five cents, on the street for 
a penny. The traveling man's laundry is special, and a high rate. 
The drayman charges twice as much for hauling trunks as for haul- 
ing freight. Instead of maintaining a free bus at a light cost to 
yourself, you permit each of your patrons to be charged twenty-five 
cents for a distance that would only be healthful exercise if the trav- 
eling man could afford to look cheap by walking it. The livery man 
soaks the traveling man a third more for a team than he charges 
the tovi'n youth. One of your rooms is rented by gamblers who fleece 
the lonesome traveling man who can be enticed into it under cover 
of a friendh'^ game, by professionals who pose as traveling mer. 
The steak you buy for the traveling man is rotten; for your own 
consumption, the best the market affords. The travelii;g man gets 
milk, you get cream. 

"Yet the traveling man must stop here. He cannot afford to let 
his customers know he is called 'Old Cheese-in-His-Throat' because 
he goes to restaurants to dine or saves a nickel by having his shoes 
shined outside the hotel. He must keep up appearances. The repu- 
tation of himself and of his house is at stake. He must have a 
place where he can be reached by telegrams from the house, and 
there is no other place than the leading hotel. He is tied hand and 
foot to patronize you, and no matter what the personal discomfort 
or humiliation, he must endure it as part of his day's work. 

"Don't you dare to talk to me about traveling men stealing from 
j'ou. You are a thief in every bone of your lazv body." 

I turned away, and would have left him with this parting shot, 
but he touched me off again by saying: 

"The traveling man does not have to pay for the service he gets 
here. He charges it up, and more, too, to the house." 

"Is that so?" I retorted. "I am surprised that a man who has 



86 . ALL ABOUT A LITTLE BROOM. 

associated so long with traveling men should have the nerve to make 
such an assertion, although it is the usual defense for robbing him. 
The traveling man does pay every cent of it. The house does not. 
The traveling man's salary is based upon his sales in proportion to 
his salary and expense account, and you know it, and when expense 
is high, the salary is low or stops entirely. The traveling man must 
make good with sales. He must show returns. A failure to do so 
means a loss of position, and you know .the road is full of new men 
all the time taking the places of the men who are not able to make 
good. And the unjust expenses are largely responsible. 

"The traveling man leads a wretched life at the best. Away 
from home and friends, among strangers all the time, here today, 
somewhere else tomorrow, a wanderer with the order to 'move on' 
everlastingly dinning in his ears, he is to be pitied more even than 
a convict in a cell, for he at least has a home. What comfort is it 
to be free and surrounded by strangers? It is like being cast away 
on a raft in mid-ocean, with water all around and not a drop to 
drink. It is torture to travel through a land of happy homes, of 
social affairs, of merry throngs of people, and be an outcast to all 
of them simply because one is a stranger; and all the time the long- 
ing for one's own home and friends is tugging at the heart. Com- 
panionship, a home, all that makes life worth the living, is left 
behind for a week and often for months at a time when the travel- 
man goes to his work, and his chief pleasure is to count the hours 
for his return. So unpleasant is the life that it is seldom taken up 
except as a stepping-stone to something better, but often these very 
expenses and the environment of lonesomeness leads to reckless- 
ness in money matters that loses the chance for promotion and ties 
him to the traveling life and gives him no hope of any future except 
being a stranger and outcast all through life, and wind up in the 
end in being discarded as being too old to make these expenses— and 
then what? Goodness only knows what becomes of the gray-haired 
traveling man who does not die in the harness. 

"And this is the man you are robbing with no compunctions of 
conscience, intact, glorying in it. Well, I don't know that I can 
do anything to prevent it, but at least I have th6 satisfaction of 
telling you what I think of you. " 

"Get out of my house," said the landlord, "and don't you ever 
show your face here again." 



ALL ABOUT A LITTLE BROOM. 87 

"All right, I will, with pleasure," I said. And I paid my bill 
and departed, walking up and down the platform of the depot until 
my train came in, not a little angry over the experience. 

Say! But I was sore! The more I thought of it the madder I 
got. Every mile that the rails ticked off brought the thought of 
something more I would like to have said to him, although as I 
remember it now I seem to have said a good deal for a man who 
seldom makes long speeches. 

With all the anger over the trivial incident of the broom, the 
hopelessness of attempting to improve conditions for the traveHrig 
man in the hundreds of similar places was, after all, the dominant 
feeling. It seemed that absolutely nothing could be dona Posses- 
sion of the building in such a town gives a monopoly, and eveif«wh«ia 
an attempt has been made to take advantage of a hotel's unpopularity 
by fitting up some inferior building for hotel purposes and soliciting 
the trade it has usually been a failure. A monopoly is a monopoly^ 
and that ends it. 

I wanted to do something. I could not physically mistreat that 
old man, or even make a bluff at it. There is a limit to that kind 
of punishment. I had tried "moral suasion" and as is usual with 
"a good talking to" to a man who is hopelessly in the wrong, it 
had done more harm than good. After all, some way of reaching 
the physical man is the only corrective. 

And then a bright light came! 

I thought of something. 

I continued the journey, finished the business that had called me 
away from home, and returned to Chicago. 

I have a friend who is high in railroad circles and through his 
influence I was able to lease a Pullman sleeping car, one of the com- 
bination buffet and sleepers. I had this refitted and taken to the 
town of E— , where the railroad had built a small temporary side- 
track for it. I sent along with it a first-class cook and two helpers. 
Then I sent word to Mr. Landlord that it would remain there for 
the accommodation of the traveling public until he should be prop- 
erly punished for his past mistreatment of the traveling men and 
promise to give them better service in the future. 

I would not like to tell what word he sent to me. 

My temporary first class hotel did not need any advertising. In 
that swift manner that information affecting the traveling man 



88 ALL ABOUT A LITTLE BROOM. 

flashes along the line, the boys were promptly advised of the innova- 
tion and promptly came to the new hotel. At first there was some 
prejudice among the local business men and attempt to boycott the 
traveling men who came there, but that was soon disposed of, be- 
cause I had instructed that all supplies should be purchased locally, 
something the landlord had never done except in those goods that 
could not be shipped in at a saving to himself. 

In addition to setting a table with the best the market afforded, 
I rented a store room and used it for a sample room, and although 
the car was within walking distance of the business part of town, I 
provided a horse and carriage and also made arrangements with the 
bus men to pick up my patrons anywhere and any time, so that the 
patrons of my hostelry, in spite of the narrow sleeping quarters, 
found more comfort than they had ever known in that town. 

About a week after the hotel pro tem. had been started, my 
manager wrote as follows : 

"We certainly have a jolly bunch here every night. The boys 
are entering heartily into the spirit of your undertaking and are at 
the same time enjoying some unaccustomed luxuries to the limit. 
We are of course giving on the table the best the market affords, 
and at this time of the year that is pretty good. And eat! You 
would think none of them had indulged in a square meal for weeks, 
yet of course we know that usually they fare quite well. They do 
seem to enjoy our cooking, however, and the jellies and preserves 
and other home delicacies that they seldom find at even the good 
hotels. Every train that passes has the platforms and open windows 
lined with traveling men, who cheer us and .shower the car with 
cards, papers and books bearing written messages of encouragement. 

"And at night, after the orders and letters home have been 
written, the boys spend an hour or two together socially, with music 
and a general frolic. There is usually one or more who can play on 
one of the several musical instruments you have provided. They do 
not seem to care for card playing. Only once was there an attempt 
to tell a coarse story, and that was by a verdant youth on his first 
trip. He was stopped by an old-timer with a 'Don't! There is a 
lady present. ' And all eyes were directed to the beautiful painting 
of The Traveling Man's Mother at the end of the car, and every hat 
was removed, the verdant youth's first of all! 

"The novelty of the Pullman hotel has seemed to take hold of 



ALL ABOUT A LITTLE BROOM. 89 

them and developed a spirit of comradeship, so that the stranger 
becomes no stranger at all and for the time all men are brothers. 

"I was beginning to think that, after all, " the letter continued, 
"your scorching tirade to the landlord about the wretched life of 
the traveling man was much overdrawn, when Saturday night came. 
The traveling man does not wear his woes on his sleeve. He dare 
not. He must keep up appearances, or his customers would never 
give him a welcome. Anyway, Saturday night showed the real 
feeling that underlies all the gaiety. In spite of all efforts at hilarity, 
ab-jut ten o'clock the boys sobered down to a Quaker meeting. Fi- 
nally, one of them said : 'Oh, fudge! This traveling life is cer- 
tainly a bam existence. I wish I were home with the kids.' 

"There was a stir of enthusiastic comment on the same line. 
One man said that he had received a telegram that morning that 
his son was dangerously ill, but the hou.se would not stand the 
expense of a §oO jump to his home and back and he could not take 
the amount from a salary that only barely supported his family. 
Another said it had been the longest week of his life because, after 
thirty years of road work, with all its varying succes.ses and failures, 
he had wound up in the end with a saving of $400, which he had 
invested in a cigar stand in a Chicago office building, and the next 
week would be the last on the road. Another had not seen his wife 
and seven children for three months, and was seldom home oftener 
than four times a year, a few days at a time, but his weekly salary 
check was mailed by the house lo his wife. 

"They all had their troubles, but the principal one was that it 
was Saturday night, a long, lonesome Sunday ahead of them, and 
they were away from home. Ah ! It is a gay life bat a sad one. " 

One month passed, two months, and we had been caring for 
practically all the traveling men who came to town. Occasionally a 
stranger making his first trip, whose mail ha I been sent to the 
hotel, would take the free bus the landlord established, but all the 
regulars and most of the transients ;were with us heart and soul. 

Three months passed. All over the country, hundreds of land- 
lords had hung up a dozen small brooms in their offices as a sign 
that they were trying to be good ! 

I thought the landlord had been sufficiently punished, although 
there had not been a word from him. I sent a man to see him. He 
arrived too late. The holder of the mortgage on the hotel had fore- 



90 ALL ABOUT A LITTLE BROOM. 

closed the day before. 

That was more than I intended, but it is well. The landlord 
lost the ownership of the building, but succeeded in Jeasing the 
hotel after word was received that I would remove the car. He dis- 
charged the day clerk, and was ever after most accommodating and 
pleasant to all his guests. His wife rolled up her sleeves and Vv^ent 
to work, the two elder daughters waited on table, and 

The son came home from college and became a lirst-class cook. 

Now what do you think of those ! 

This was an ending that I had not foreseen, and I did not intend 
to work such great changes. I don't know whether it has made the 
family any better mentally and morally or not, but there is some- 
thing about idleness and living on the labor of others that paralyzes 
the better traits of humanity, and there is something about honest 
employment that sends the blood coursing healthfully through the 
veins and makes for better and nobler manhood and womanhood. I 
hope this has been the result. 

I know, however, that there is one man in this world who hates 
me. A friend of mine who stopped there recently was lavish in his 
praise of the service, of the courtesy of the landlord, and of his 
special kindness to traveling men, but he drew him out about his 
feelings toward me, and they were exceeJingly bitter. I am sorry, 
but I can't help it. 

Bless the traveling man ! He is no longer the "sport" of the 
olden time, but a careful, conscientious business man, made so by 
the stress of competition that has weeded out the vicious and incom- 
petents. May his tribe decrease by promotions to more congenial 
employment, but may his comforts increase while he still must 
remain a traveling man ! 



Benight of the Twentieth Century. 

Tbe Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
lienter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
aboiit the world punishing meanness. He fell heir to a sirall for- 
tune, and his dream was made real. 



A BUTTERFLY THAT BECAME A WORM. 

I have failed in one of my efforts at reform. It was Don Quixote 
and a wind-mill this time. I have been amazed at the results, far 
greater than anticipated, that have usually come from my attempts 
to correct what I believed to be existing wrongs, but it seems that I 
cannot always be successful. But I will tell about it. 

Down in southern Ohio there is a large class of wealthy farmers, 
men who were born and raised on their farms, inherited the prop- 
erty when it was of little value, and with the improvement of con- 
ditions of farm work and the growth in poi^ulation of the section, 
the lands have increased in value until it is a common thing to see 
in the towns many farmers dressed in' rough clotlies, with bent 
shoulders, gnarled hands and unkempt hair, who are vi'orth from 
640.000 to $60,000, yet who toil and save and live as their fathers 
toiled and saved and lived under conditions that made such toiling 
and saving and living a necessity. With that amount of property, 
under present day conditions, a family can be supported in town 
and enjoy all of the comforts and most of the luxuries of civiliza- 
tion. Most of these men are old men, with their children grown 
and provided with homes away from the parent nest, and having 
done more than their share of work to make up the world's supply 
to provide for the natural wants of mankind, they are entitled to 
the rest and freedom from v^'ork that should come to an old age of 
the life that has been well spent. Many farmers have moved to 
town and appreciated these conditions, many of them have broken 



92 A BUTTERFLY THAT BECAME A WORM. 

away from the farm life early enough to give their children the 
advantage of a town education. Those who have not done so are 
the ones I have in mind. 

It has seemed to me that these wealthy farmers have closed their 
eyes to an appreciation of what civilization and evolution really 
mean and it is almost beyond belief that they can content themselves 
with plodding along in the old, old hard way so many years after it 
has become unnecessary. I have often had the fancy that perhaps 
from never having enjoyed the life-giving thrill of the daily bath 
and clean clothes, from never having enjoyed, not the idleness of 
leisure but the pleasure that may be enjoyed by a life of leisure 
given up to an appreciation of the good things of life. I have 
reasoned that these men did not realize that such things exist be- 
cause they have not had personal experience of them. 

I have often speculated upon the possibility of a return to the 
old and narrow life of hard work, penuriousness and long days of 
toil if for a brief time a glimpse of the real thing could be seen and 
the pleasures temporarily enjoyed. 

Good fortune happened to favor me in an attempt to solve these 
problems that were puzzling me. An uncle living in that section 
and who answered to a dot the description of these old farmers, 
wrote me that he was called to the west on business connected v/ith 
the affairs of a son who had migrated from the home surroundings 
some years ago, and that he would stop in Chicago for a short 
visit with me. I had not seen this nncle for several years, but my 
mind's eye pictured him as I last saw him, in rough and dirty 
clothes, the ends of his trousers in his boot-tops, a wrinliled face, 
long shaggy beard, long shaggy hair, stooped shoulders, hardy and 
skinny iigure, pitching hay in a broiling sun, a bandana handker- 
chief around his neck, the sweat pouring from him in streams, and 
hard at work from four o'clock that morning, not even sparing time 
for courteous attention to a visitor. This man was worth more 
than forty thousand dollars, was deeply religious, generous in his 
way, and a good friend in time of trouble. Yet he had never had a 
bath except of the sponge variety and a tin wash-dish, and he had 
never worn a night-gown ! 

It was again my good fortune to have a letter waiting for him 
when he arrived, in which his son said that the business that was 
calling him to the west would have to be deferred a couple of weeks 



A BUTTERFLY THAT BECAME A WORM^ 93 

and suggesting that he make a longer visit in Chicago than was 
anticipated. 

I am more than half inclined to believe that the son had pur- 
posely planned this in order that his father might be induced to 
stay longer with nie, the son having escaped from the narrow views 
of the old life and being desirous that his parents enjoy their hard- 
earned wealth in a reasonable manner. At all events, it made it 
easy for me to carry out a plan I had long dreamed about. 

I met my uncle at the depot with my automobile and carried 
him to my home, a home that is not as pretentious as some of its 
neighbors, but one in which none of the real luxuries are missing. 

During the evening we had a delightful visit, as all relatives 
who have been long separated should have, and it was not until the 
next evening, after he had become slightly accustomed to the luxury 
with which he was surrounded, that I broached my pet scheme. I 
told him frankly that I believed he was missing all the good things 
that made life worth the living, and that he was entitled to them. 
I explained that it was my earnest wish that he should make a visit 
of two weeks with me and in that time indulge liiinself in every 
proper comfort and luxury that he could find. 

He protested most earnestly that it was not what he wished, 
that he was used to his own ways, that he was too old to change, 
that it was sinful to waste so much time when there was work to 
be done, that it was sinful to waste in riotous living, that satan 
captures more souls through luxury than all the other agencies com- 
bined, and that his neighbors and friends, the deacons in his church, 
his good pastor, his wife, would be shocked and scandalized at duch 
friskiness in one so old and staid. To all of his objections I offered 
the best arguments I could command. I am a persuasive single- 
handed talker, and before we parted for the night I secured a reluc- 
tant consent to my plan. He held the mental reservation, he said, 
that it would take months of sack-cloth and ashfss to recover his 
peace of mind, but he would place himself in my hands, and may 
the burden of righteous punishment fall on me ! 

The next morning, after his bath, and a rub down by the valet 
I had report for duty at that time, we induced him to have his locks 
shorn. Then I said : 

"Off come those whiskers, Uncle. It will make you look and 
feel ten years younger. ' ' 



94 A BUTTERFLY THAT BECAME A WORM. 

He protested earnestly, but I insisted, and after a time he settled 
back into the chair, and off they came! 

Then he was dressed in such clothes as he had never possessed 
—nothing gorgeous but plainly elegant, soft and clean. 

After a hearty breakfast such as his poor stomach had never 
before had a chance to appreciate, we took a spin in my automobile 
around the boulevards and through the parks. 

In the afternoon I permitted him to rest, reading to him, with 
comments, some of the finest things in literature, and trying to 
make clear to him some of the deep beauties of their meaning. 

In the evening we attended the theater, the play selected bein:? 
the best for the purpose that happened to be in town. He showed a 
real interest, although I heard him mutter under his breath some- 
thing about being forgiven. After the theater, a lunch at one of 
the most imposing restaurants in the city. 

The next morning we tc>ok another spin in the auto, and by this 
time he was overcoming his fear and was enjoying the luxury of the 
ride. I had of course from the beginning taken the precaution of 
having no speeding or threats of collision. I desired to educate him 
to an appreciation of the good things of life, not to make him afraid. 

We stopped at the largest retail store in the city and I took him 
around all the floors, giving him a sight of all the glories gathered 
from the four corners of the earth, such a magnificent display as he 
had never dreamed of seeing in anyone building. 

Again, a rest in the afternoon, and in the evening the entertain- 
ment selected was a lecture, illustrated by picture:?, a lecture on 
travel that I knew would not be too deep to be entertaining. 

Then the luxury of a comfortable home. 

The next day, in addition to the usual ride, we visited the art 
gallery. In fact, we frequently went there during the two weeks. 
Each time we went to but one or two rooms, and I explained as best 
I could the history, the meaning and the effect upon the world's 
history of some of the notable paintings, striving to arouse in him 
an appreciation of the real meaning of art. 

Another rest in the afternoon, with the introduction of a social 
game, teaching him its technicalities, and endeavoring to show the 
logic of the use of games as affording means of social intercourse 
without the strained necessity for continuous conversation. 

In the evening we took a ride to Milwaukee on one of the mag- 



A BUTTERFLY THAT BECAME A WORM. 95 

nificent lake steamers, the glory of a beautiful night adding to the 
many delights of the trip, and returned to the city the next morning 
on one of the no less magnificent railway trains. 

The morning was spent in visiting one of the large factories, 
permission and an escort being furnished by my friend, the manager, 
and in this experience my uncle gained much knowledge of the work 
and habits of a part of the world that had been foreign to his vision 
on the farm, yet to which he was contributing daily sustenance in 
food. 

We also went to the top of one of the city's sky-scrapers and had 
a view of the magnitude and glory of this great city and the beau- 
ful lake. 

In the evening we visited the greatest of the city's summer 
amusement parks, took rides on the easiest of the scenic railways, 
took in the best and funniest of the sideshows, watched the merry 
crowd, and more than once during the evening my uncle laughed ! 

By the next morning my uncle's stature had increased two 
inches. The stoop was being vi'orked out of his shoulders, and he 
seemed to be taking on flesh. The morning bath, the daily rub, 
the daily shave and face massage, the clean linen, were working a 
change that was pleasing to see. He was beginning to feel at ease 
in his good clothes, his speech was losing some of its hesitancy and 
his whole manner was assuming a new dignity. 

The next day was Sunday. We attended the religious services 
in the Auditorium. At no place in the world is there a service on 
Sunday morning to equal it. The vast auditorium, filled with five 
thousand people, was a sight most impressive. The jjastor is one of 
greatest leaders of thought in the whole world, so masterly in the 
command of ideas and language that I have often been dazed in an 
attempt to realize that these splendid utterances were coming from 
a mere man, yet so much a man that in all his personal relationships 
he is overflowing with the deepest and most sincere of human sj'm- 
pathies. The music reached the heights of technical skill in the 
quartette and a most impressive choir service, and when that vast 
audience arose, the melodious tones of the grand pipe ore:an leading, 
and every individual in the congregation, under the earnest solicita- 
tion of the pastor, joining in one of the dear old soul-stirring hymns, 
the music that swelled upward must have reached the farthest limits 
of heaven and rejoiced the angels. When the quartette sang the 



96 A BUTTERFLY THAT BECAME A WORM. 

Lord's prayer in a low, sweet voice, I saw my uncle catch and hold 
his breath, and at its conclusion he drew a long sigh of deepest 
feeling. I hoped my uncle would be impressed with the idea that 
real religion is not necessarily confined to the backw()ods church or 
to useless self-denial and gloom. 

I wanted to let my uncle rest for the balance of the day, but the 
announcement that a bishop from his own church, who lives in 
Cincinnati, would speak in Orchestra hall, was too tempting, and 
we spent the evening there. I wanted to show him his own bishop 
under different conditions than those which surrounded him when 
he visited the little local church in which my uncle vv-as a leader, to 
impress liim still further with the idea that the comforts of civiliza- 
tion are not the workings of a personal satan but the natural inheri- 
tance of the normal man. 

Well, it would be tedius to tell of all the good things I showed 
ray uncle in this big, this good city of Chicago, nor all the luxurie.5 
to which I accustomed him that were a healthful part of moral 
living. After he had overcome part of his reserve and restraint and 
became fairly at ease in his surroundings, I took him to the clubs, 
to social affairs, and had him meet some of the truly great in this 
great city in an informal and friendly way. AVith all the educating 
I was doing, I persisted in the almost daily reading and discussion 
uf the best in literature, the visiting of art galleries, museums, and 
places of similar interest, all the time trying to impress the lesson 
that it was not in denying ourselves these things that result in 
greater intelligence, but in enjoying them, that we were best fitting 
ourselves for an after life that is to be all intelligence and no bowing 
to the burdens of the flesh. 

The two weeks slipped past before I realized it, but at the end I 
felt that I had done a good work. I parted with my uncle at the 
depot with a conscience applauding and saying "well done, well 
done." He looked to be a new man and he was a new man. He 
went his way rejoicing, and apparently with much thanksgiving. 

But that was not the end. 

I was so anxious to see the result of my experiment that some 
weeks later I went down to his home to see him. And I found him 
pitching hay in the broiling sun, pants in boot-tops, old straw hat, 
bandana handkerchief, the wrinkles and stoop recovered, and a 
vigorous effort to again grow a beard ! 



f 



A BUTTERFLY THAT BECAME A WORM. 97 

Ah, me! Ah, me! The best laid plans of mice and men gang 
aft agley ! 

He greeted me cordially, of course, but later when we were 
alone it was difficult to draw him out on the old question. The 
best that I could get out of him was that it was all wasteful and 
sinful, that if he was forgiven this time, which he never expected 
to be, he would never again put himself in the power of the tempter. 
He was not angry at me, nor did he blame me, but I belonged to a 
different world of thought than his, and there was nothing in com- 
mon. He was born to the plow and to the plow he would stick. 
Luxuries were a scheme of satan, and his Bible said "Get thee 
behind me, satan." 

And that was the end ! 

Luxuries do afford a broad avenue in the direction of satan's 
mental perdition, but ignorance and narrow-mindedness, a lack of 
working sympathy with humanity, are all broad highways leading 
in the same direction. Blessed be the man who can find the straight 
and narrow path through all this maze of misleading roads. 

But it was not his religion. Even a religion of "sack-cloth and 
ashes" is better than the kind that indulges all worldly vanities in 
the belief that "sack-cloths" are not necessary. There is a happy 
medium. Instead, it was "the call of the wild," it was "back to 
nature," it was the grip of the primitive man that only a long 
course of education and many struggles can overcome. 



l^niQiit of the Twentieth Century. 

The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
about the world punishing meanness. He fell heir to a small for- 
tune, and his dream was made real. 



A LOT HE DIDN'T EXPECT. 

I have never had much regard for lawyers. It is a fine profes- 
sion for one who has a dislike for real work and who wants to wear 
good clothes and go into society, but from the i^rimary nature of his 
duties an attorney must represent wrong an average of half the time, 
and since both sides of a legal controversy take extreme positions in 
the knowledge that a decision is apt to be made for a happy medium, 
a lawyer of necessity does wrong even when representing the right. 
If in a general way his client is in the right, the claims he must 
make, the testimony he must encourage, is of necessity an extreme 
to offset the extreme claims of an opponent. How often have I 
heard them say to witnesses in training, "Oh, no, you must not say 
that. It is true, of course, but if the defendant does not force it 
out, we must not bring it to the attention of the jury." That is 
not exactly construed as suggesting perjury, but so far as the ends 
of justice are concerned it amounts to the same thing. This is the 
central thing in the lawyer's mind from first to last. No matter 
how many decisions he may find against him, they are never pre- 
sented, but onlj' those that favor his side of the case. It' the oppos- 
ing lawyer is less well I'ead or too poor to afford so sumjituous a 
library, an important decision may never be referred to, and the 
case be won because of the ignorance of the ojoposing lawyer, and 
not on the merits of the controversy. I have never yet found a dis- 
position to try a case purely upon its merits. It is a pretty theory 
that a lawyer must represent his client and use every means not 



A LOT HE DIDN'T EXPECT. 99 

down-right disreputable to win. Bat it results in a vast sj-stem of 
courts being maintained at enormous expense to the tax-payers, 
with cases dragging their slow way from six to ten years, and in 
the end no one getting justice. It is a maxim in every reputable 
business office to avoid going to law except as a last desperate ex- 
tremity. Don't look to the law for justice. Look to it only as a 
possible defense from the kind of rank injustice that cannot be 
tolerated. 

A friend was discussing with me the other day a conference he 
had with one of the great lawyers of this great city— in fact, the 
top-notcher in the reputation for winning, right or wrong, but 
winning. If his case did not have merit, he played upon a thousand 
strings to gain delay and wear out his opponents, to befog the wit- 
nesses, the jury or the judge. With a great library of decisions, a 
• natural mental ability above that of other members of the profes- 
sion, a political influence that reached judges, jurors, and even the 
bailiffs, a prestige in secret societies that brought willing help in 
times when he needed it, a fine presence, a masterly command of 
language, a jolly good nature that won the interest of the men who 
were to decide, and an ingenuity that overlooked none of the law's 
possibilities in the way of advantage, he won cases, and those who 
have invoked the law to secure justice have the bills to pay without 
the justice. 

"Yes, " said my friend, "he told me we could sue for $10,000 
damages as easily as the real damage of $2,000, and if the jury hap- 
pened to be prejudiced against corporations or could be worked, we 
would get the larger sum. Anyway, it was better to swear to $10,000 
damages, because if the jury cut it down to §5,000 we would still 
be ahead. ' ' 

I don't know why this casual remark about an ordinary occur- 
rence should have impressed me strongly, yet for .several days I 
c;ould not forget it. The incident referred to was not important in 
itself. Such exaggeration of claims is the ordinary method of pro- 
cedure, it is expected, it is understood, and is usually figured in the 
end by a liberal reduction of figures. Yet in its analysis it is such 
a mockery of justice, such a burlesque upon what should be expected 
in and from the courts that it is astonishing that intelligent people 
should gravely countenance it and approve of it. It is perjury, 
and an attempt at fraud, and when backed by such extraneous in- 



too A LOT HE DIDN'T EXPECT. 

fiuences as the political and social prestige and technical ingenuity 
of an attornej', it frequently succeeds in accomplishing fraud and 
the perversion of justice. 

It is another of those business matters where the most bare-faced 
robbery, the most outrageous injustice is perpetrated by honorable 
gentlemen and otherwise good fellows because "they all do it." 

You know how at times a certain matter will linger for days in 
one's siibconsciousness. So this remark of my friend lingered with 
me. At last I said to myself: 

"Just for that, Mr. Lawyer, I will slap you on your wrist!" 

I knew that this lawyer was very anxious to acquire a certain 
lot of ground adjoining his home. It contained a shabby old house 
that was an unsightly and unpleasant neighbor. It wa^ a matter of 
public knowledge that the lawyer had tried every means in his' 
power to purchase this lot without paying a fabulous price for it. 
The possessor knew how earnestly the lawyer wanted it, since the 
removal of the unsightly building and enlarging of his own grounds 
would vastly improve the appearance and comfort of the lawyer's 
home. He was therefore holding out for an unreasonable figure. 
Meanwhile the lawyer was the lausrhing stock of the entire city 
because in spite of his great ability and wealth, his legal successes 
and political prestige, this one poor man had successfully defied 
him. 

I went to see the owner of the lot and introduced myself as the 
Knight of the Twentieth Century. He greeted me delightedly, evi- 
dently thinking his obscure position protected him from my peculiar 
ministrations, and talked most enthusiastically for a time about the 
work I was doing. Finally I explained to him what I desired to do 
and told him that the opportunity of selling this lot to the lawyer 
would give me an excuse for meeting him without employing force. 
He acknowledged that he had held to the lot about as long as he 
could, that he needed the money and that he would be glad to take 
a reasonable price for it. I had prepared a deed in the lawyer's 
name, we had it properly acknowledged, and paying him the J"eason- 
able price that he asked, I left him, whistling "There'll be a Hot 
Time in the Old Town Tonight." 

I wrote a letter to the lawyer telling him that I had acquired 
the property and asked him if I could see him in his home in the 
evening, as I vv'ould prefer that to trusting the matter to my attor- 



A LOT HE DIDN'T EXPECT. 101 

neys. He promptly replied, asking me to come the same evening. 

When I presented myself I was immediately shown into the 
library. The lawyer greeted me cordially, evidently expecting some 
nevv turn in the controversy over the lot, but thinking courtesy a 
good play at the tirst, at least. He was all smiles. 

After a few raoments of "getting acquainted" conversation, I 
handed the deed to him and told him all the money I wanted was 
the §4,000 I had paid for it. 

"I am delighted to get this," he said, and he immediately wrote 
a chec'.v for the amount and handed it to me. 

The attorney was too wise to expect something for nothing. 

"You are a stranger to me, sir," he said, "and I cannot imagine 
why you have interested yourself in this matter and how you secured 
the property at its real value and a price I am glad to pay. Is there 
anything I can do for you to show ray appreciation?" 

"Yes, there is, " I replied. "I want to have some fun with 
you. I want to b3 merry, and I want you to ba the object of my 
merriment. After you have done your part, we will be quits of all 
uliligation. You will take notice that alone in this room I am so 
much stronger than you that I could do you serious harm if you 
make an outcry. I will not hurt you if you do not attempt it, but 
I am going to take pay for my services by making you act in a 
I'idiculous manner for awhile, and after it is over I will explain 
why. ' ' 

He was mentally prepared for some suggestion of benefit to me. 
In the absence of a demand for a money bonus before the deed 
was delivered, his mind naturally drifted to political favors. For 
a moment he was so dazed at my suggestion that he could not com- 
prehend its meaning. 

"Well," he said, "I don't understand you, but am sure no man 
would come here on a deal of this kind with the intention of doing 
me serious bodily harm. I realize that I am entirely at your mercy. 
You are too deep for me, anyway. You would not come here and 
do this if you were not amply protected in some way. My man 
might attempt to put you out, but you could handle both of us with 
one hand, and I would not care to consider what might hapi^en if 
you were inclined to desperate measures before outside halp could be 
attracted. What is it, anyway?" 

"Now you are reasonable, my friend, and I will partly explain. 



102 A LOT HE DIDN'T EXPECT. 

You are the acknowledged leader of the bar in this great citj'. You 
have attained great success in the practice of law. You have kept 
within the limits of professional conduct, and it is the broadness of 
that limit that I take exceptions to. But you have succeeded by 
employing every legal chicanery and fraud that could be used for 
the benefit of your clients, regardless of all questions of justice. I 
have no personal animosity toward yon, nor do I blame you particu- 
larly, as society is constructed. But just as one criminal of many 
may be punished as an example, I am going to punish you as an 
example. I am going to prove to you that outraged justice repre- 
sented by my 270 pounds of flesh and bone, is demanding an account- 
ing for the wrongs you and your fellows have perpetrated in her 
name. There is no need for argument along this line. You know 
the conditions as well as I do. As a first attempt at punishment, I 
want you ti) stand in the corner here on your head. I cannot send 
you to jail, and j o i are too big for a paddle, so we will see if 
another kind of punishment will make you realize the seriousness of 
your offense. " 

"Well, I don't like that," said the law-yer. 

"I know you don't, but you have been viewing justice in a 
mental upside-down attitude, and we will see if reversing your 
physical being will give you the angle for a more correct view- 
point. " 

"Oh, fudge!" he said. "There is no sense in that." 

"We will see about that later. Now down you go, and up you 
go," and I started for him. 

He didn't wait for me to reach him, but hustled over to the 
corner and down on his knees. 

"Haven't done this since I was a boy," he said, "but if I must, 
I must." 

With some clumsiness, he managed to brace himself against the 
wall and slowly raised himself so that he gave a very fair represen- 
tation of a circus ace. Pie could not stand it long, and soon his 
limbs wavered and dropped to the floor. 

"That was very good," I said. "Now do it again.'' 

Once more he struggled and scrambled and managed to get his 
feet upward, this time with grit holding out a little longer. But he 
had to come down. 

"Bravo, bravo," I said. "Encore, encore. Do it again!" 



A LOT HE DIDN'T EXPECT. 103 

He tlicl, but this time it was more of a struggle. After he came 
down, I said : 

"I am having just a bull}' time! Once again." 

And it was once again until he could stand it no longer. 

When his feet hit the floor with a bump, I said: 

"Do you get a different view of the world's affairs from that 
position?" 

"You bet I do," he said, "but it is blurred and I don't know 
just what I do see." 

"Well, trj' it again. Perhaps as you get more used to it you 
will see things more clearly. " 

He did. But he could not stay there indefinitely, and he was 
getting to be decidedly wobbly. 

Down he came. "Well, I don't see any fun in this, ' he said. 

"Ah, that is just what I am after," I replied. "I want you to 
look at this matter seriously. It has been play for you. You have 
succeeded, but you have won success by crushing the lives and 
bleeding the hearts of thousands of people who have just as good a 
right to enjoy life as you have. It has been no fun for them. In 
fact, it has been as serious as I would like it to be for you for a 
little time. Now once more." 

There was nothing else for him to do, and with what strength 
he had left he wriggled around and managed to push himself to a 
j-osition with his head on the floor and his body partly held up 
against the wall. 

"Now when I count ten, down you come.'' 

I commenced to count, slowly, every muscle of the man quiver- 
ing with the strain. I dwelt before saying ten until I could see the 
bloud vessels swell and the perspiration pouring off his face. As his 
strength finally gave out, I managed to say ten just before he crum- 
pled to the floor in a heap. 

After he had rested awhile, I told him to turn around and sit 
facing me. 

"Now, I have had all the fun I want for today. Whether you 
and I ever continue this form of amusement rests entirely with you. 
You have had a big share of the world's successes, but in one hour 
tonight you have learned that all these are swept away and you are 
a naked and helpless sinner when outraged justice chooses to punish 
you for wrongdoing. I shall watch you ia the future and if there. 



104 .4 LOT HE DIDN'T EXPECT. 

is not a change in your conduct as a lawyer to favor justice instead 
of le.^al injustice, there will he a repetition of this session. 

"However, I don't suppose you can handle much law business 
ou that plan, and I suppose I will not be able to hold you to a strict 
accounting. As I said in the beginning, it is the system and custom 
that are at fault more than you personally. Something should be 
done for reform, and being at the head of a wrong system you are 
in a position to help change it. 

"What is your greatest ambition, anyway? You have wealth, 
honor, a happy home, society, everything that man can want." 

"I have never confessed it to a living soul, but you have taken 
all the grit out of me and I will tell you anything you ask. I want 
to be a judge of the United States supreme court. At least, that 
was my one great ambition before you forced me to look at things 
in this topsy-turvy fashion." 

"Unless you change your views and practices," I said, "I hope 
you never will be. You have not shown the qualities of mind for 
that position. You understand the law, all right, but behind the 
law is intrinsic justice, and you have not understood that. No one 
siioulJ be on the supreme b^jnch whose mind is closed to the highest 
law." 

"Say, let me get up, and I will tell you something." 

"Indeed, you may get up, " I replied, "and make yourself as 
comfortable as possible. I want to say, my son, that this h'as hurt 
me worse than it has you. ■' 

"Don't mention it," he said, scrambling to his feet. "You did 
me an important favor and have had your fun. Let us shake hands 
and call it square all around. I have passed through great tribula- 
tions, but I see a glimmer of great i^eace. Excuse me for a few 
moments until I make myself comfortable, and I will tell you about 
ir. " 

Having opened the window, bathed his fac3 and otherwise re- 
moved the strain and stains of the recent ordeal, ho seated himself 
comfortably, and with an eagerness that surprised me, said : 

"There may ba something in your notion that I have be3n view- 
ing the world from an upside-down position, for the recent reversal 
of conditions has left me a decided change of vision. I have been 
ambitious for a seat on the suprema banch, but that do9S not look 
good to me now. I believe there is a greater honor. 



A. LOT HE DIDN'T EXPECT. 105 

"When I was a boy, just commencing the study of law, my 
great ambition was to become a rich and successful attorney, and 
having attained that form of success, it was my purpose to give up 
the regular practice and establish niyself as an independent court of 
i-eal justice. In those days the evils perpetrated in the name of the 
law were even greater than they are today, and it wa.s my ambition 
to attempt to correct them. It was my theory that it would be a 
tine thing to maintain an office to which litigants would be invited 
to submit their cases for arbitration outside the forms and techni- 
calities of the law, unrepresented by counsel and without the care- 
fully created mountains of theories and irrelevant claims. The 
enforcement of ray decrees would rest with the promise that the 
litigants refusing to abide by them would find the talent and influ- 
ence of myself and able assistants arrayed against them in the regu- 
lar courts. 

"This ambition has been a strong undercurrent all through my 
life, though until now it has been suppressed by the stronger ambi- 
tions of immediate success in regular channels. It looks good to me 
now, and I am going to attempt it. What do you think of the 
plan?" 

"Splendid!" I said. "You will be the supreme justice, which 
is greater than any court, supreme or otherwise." 

"Of course I would not undertake to open an office for free 
advice to all comers," he continued. "That would hopelessly 
swamp me v^ith a multitude of trivial affairs. I would take an 
interest only in such matters as have reached the seriousness of 
being expensively in the courts, trusting to this new influence being 
a warning against the bringing of cases with no merit, and to care- 
fulness in the advice of attorneys to their clients. 

"My, but I am thirsty. Won't you have a drink of lake Michi- 
gan water with me to the success of the new form of justice court?" 

"Indeed, I will, with pleasure, " I replied. 

Law is a good thing for the lawyers, but that is because justice 
is blind. A far-seeing justice would be better. 



Benight of the Twentieth Century. 

The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Moralit}' that would go 
about the world punishing meanness. He fell heir to a small for- 
tune, and his dream was made real. 



.4 GLANCE INTO THE FUTURE. 

I have not felt the spirit move me to attempt to punish any par- 
ticular Individual against whom there may be a popular clamor, but 
have taken up such matters as accidentally came to my attention 
and that did not seem to be in a fair way of being corrected by 
usual methods. I do not know what urged me to attempt an excep- 
tion to this rule. There is at all times to a greater or less extent, 
a vitriolic comment upon some of the business practices of the king 
of American commercialism, Mr. John D. R. , and with no particu- 
lar motive I determined to pay him a visit and let the consequences 
take care of themselves. 

I confess that I have not joined in the general disapproval of 
this man's ruthless business methods. I have admired his great 
genius as an organizer and excused the results when they were un- 
jjleasant for the men who opposed him, with the thought that up to 
this time the great industrial war that has been waged againat the 
wastefulness of competition has resulted in vast general benefit to 
humanity. The soldier who fails in battle may not have a dying 
appreciation of the benefit to the world of the principles he fought 
for or against, but the great commander must plan for carnage and 
death. These are incidents, not principles. 

I therefore determined to visit the noted financier. I knew him 
to be the best guarded man in the whole country, but trusting 
largely to luck and to his having overlooked one possibility, on a 
very dark night recently I went to his home. 



A GLANCE INTO THE FUTURE. 107 

How I gained access to his bed-chamber I will not now relate, 
hut I accomplished it. I was hidden when the master and the valet 
came in, and in a tew moments the valet had finished his work and 
left for the night. 

The great man, prejDared to lie down upon a bed that may have 
been ever so dovv'ny but nevertheless must have had many hard 
bumps in it to cause him many a restless night, was evidently rest- 
less and wakeful. Instead of retiring, he pulled a blanket off the 
bed, wrapped it around himself and seated himself in an easy chair. 
Witli a sigh, he placed his elbow on the arm of the chair and bent 
his head to his hand, the most i^athetic picture of a human soul 
bearing the burden of a crushing responsibility that I have ever 
seen. 

I stepped quietly forward and took a seat facing the great man, 
and when a slight noise aroused him to look up, I was sitting there, 
smiling at him. 

He started in alarm, but with that masterly nerve that has often 
been displayed when brought to bay, he instantly recovered himself 
and in a tone free from fright, he said : 

"Well, sir, you are here!" 

"Yep! I'm here," I replied. "Unexpected, of course. Too 
many office boys between you and the public. About a thousand, I 
guess. I don't blame you, of course, but it's too much red tape for 
me. Permit me to introduce myself as the Knight of the Twentieth 
Century. You have heard of me, have you not?" 

"Yes, indeed," was the reply. "I have read all your letters 
that I have found published, but am frank enough to say that I am 
sorry that you seem to have thought it necessary to call upon me in 
this fashion. Your treatment of patients, while I believe it has 
always been deserved, is usually severe." 

"Well, I hope I may make an exception of you, if you will be 
patient enough to talk with me for a time. If I find any punish- 
ment is necessary I may even leave its extent and character to you. ' ' 

"That sounds encouraging, " said he, "and if you will please 
tell me how you got in here I will be glad to talk with you as long 
as you wish. I do not deny that I am a timid man, and I am afraid 
to look the future in the face with the awful knowledge that any 
outsider, whether evilly inclined or not, may penetrate the one 
place where I have hoped that I was sate.'' 



108 A GLANCE INTO THE FUTURE, 

"With pleasure I will relieve you of that worry," I said. "It 
is an unfair condition that you or anyone else should live in con- 
stant fear. " With this, I stepped to the windovv', dresv hack a 
heavy curtain and gave him a glimpse of my air-ship that only a 
tew days before I had succeeded in perfecting. 

The frightened look left his eyes and a wan smile came over his 
face as he turned to me. "Thank you," he said. "I thought I had 
taken every precaution, hut inventive genius gets ahead of the best 
of us. An air-ship and an extremely dark night are a combination 
that I have not prepared for — yet. 

"Well, I feel better, " he continued, as he made himself com- 
fortable in the easy chair and motioned me to accept another. 
"Tt>ll me to what particular thing I owe the honor of a visit from, 
you." 

"My own mind very much doubts the necessity or propriety 
of this peculiar visit, Mr. R., and certainly it has no relation to 
the past, whether there have been abuses that should have brought 
])iiiiishment or not. I will frankly explain my state of mind, and 
then we shall see what you have to say. 

"T have admired you for many years, especially your steadfast- 
ness of purpose away back in the stormy times when yon tried to 
bring order out of flagrant and reckless extravagance in the oil 
industry by promulgating the iirinciple that co-operation was better 
than the wastefulness of competition, and in spite of the desperate 
efforts of as wild and reckless a gang of spendthrifts and get-rich- 
quick and spend-it-quicker pirates as ever infested the earth, who 
were ready to take even the desperate measure of personal violence to 
you to prevent your making the oil industry a business instead of a 
gamble. You lost at first, but the strength of the grand principle 
that co-operation is better than wasteful competition has triumphed 
in the oil industry and in the scores of other business enterprises 
that have felt the magic of your touch. I am heartily in sympathy 
with your conviction that everywhere and at all times competition 
is a waste. It may correct the harm of too much power or capital 
being concentrated, but competition is in itself a tremendous waste, 
its efforts being to tear down, while every human being who con- 
sumes should be employed in building up to replace that which be 
has consumed. 

"A man who tills the soil or works in a factory is giving to the 



A GLANCE INTO THE FUTURE. 109 

grand total of the world's work each day an amount equal to the 
labors of others which he must consume for his day's living. The 
man who is employed merely in diverting business from one channel 
to another must consume as much as any other worker, hut other 
men who are producers are supporting him without return in benefit 
to themselves. Such a man is more harm to the world's community 
than a rich man. The rich man can only consume about as much 
food and clothes and shelter as any man, and if he is actually at 
work each day in creative production he has returned to the work- 
ing world the full pay for his 'keep.' He may have accumulated 
thousands during the day, but those thousands cannot be eaten or 
otherwise consumed and must be re-invested, the working world not 
having suffered the loss of an atom of energy. But the loss in the 
support of a non-producer is a positive loss, and must be made up 
with extra energy by other producers. When this loss amounts to 
the support of a fifth of humanity, as it does under the policy of 
competition, the real workers must make up this loss with long 
hours and pinched existence. I believe that competition is wrong 
in principle. " 

"Go on," said Mr. R. "I am very much interested. You have 
penetrated to the innermost depths of my own conclusions, and I 
tell you now that I am not afraid of you and am glad that you came 
to see me. ' ' 

"I thank you for this confidence, Mr. R. ," I said, "but while 
our conclusions have harmonized this far, perhaps this is where 
they widely diverge, and that will bring me to the object of my 
visit, 

"Manifestly a great harm may come from the absence of com- 
petition in that the profits made by saving the expense of competi- 
tion have up to this time amassed themselves in the hands of a few 
men, and that is a tremendous power. These profits have been 
given back to the producers by re-investment, but that system in 
itself simply means accumulating still greater power in the hands of 
those who happen to be in control. I have kept fairly well posted 
upon the undercurrents of financial affairs as well as the surface 
swells and drifts and tides, and I am convinced that today you are 
the financial king of this country. You have a controlling influence 
in the oil industry, which is a plaything compared to your vast 
other interests, and the whole gives you a czar-like power of dicta- 



no A GLANCE INTO THE FUTURE. 

tion in the control of the vast railway S3'3tems of the country, a 
control of all the banks and trust companies, insurance companies, 
street railways, and such gigantic inter-state commercial enter- 
prises as the steel, copper and lumber industries, to say nothing of 
legislative and official forces that are aa much in your employ 
through the influences that control them as if they were office boys. 
I believe that, contrary to the repeated announcements that you have 
not been active in business affairs for years, there is not a single 
important matter affecting the business or politics of this country 
that does not come to you for definite decision. 

"Now, I agree that the saving from wasteful competition is a 
good thing, and you will agree that to prove it a good thing for all 
the people, as it should be, it should in a. direct fashion go back to 
the people. Such tremendous jDower cannot always rest in one man, 
or a few men. It is time for this vast saving to go back to human- 
ity at large. 

"I came here with this thought on my mind. I do not know 
why I came. other than that of late I .have followed impulses that 
seem to me to be directed by a higher power. I may be mistaken 
in believing there is such directing. The reason for the belief is 
the results of my efforts are so larerely in excess of my anticipations 
that it seems to me there must be help from the powerful influences 
that shape the larger affairs of man. 

'■By this same impulse I am directed to suggest to you that this 
system of accumulation has gone on long enough. You are no longer 
u young man, Mr. R. , and I want to give you the vv'arning that in a 
single hour the patient work of your life-time may be dissipated 
and anarchy may result. If when the time comes for you to lay 
down this burden of responsibility, your will shows that this great 
v,'ealth and power has been tied up for forty or fifty years to con- 
tinue its prodigious accumulation, as was done with the estates of 
Firfd and Rogers, the meaning of the tremendous effect of such a 
concentration of the capital of the country will be realized by the 
people, and conditions would result that would be too appalling for 
me to put into words. " 

Having delivered my message, I looked to Mr. R. for a reply. 
In a quiet, earnest tone of voice that carried conviction with every 
word, he said : 
. "Well, Sir Knight, -I have had two great ambitions. One, as 



A GLANCE INTO THE FUTURE. Ill 

you have observed, was to prove that I was right years and years 
ago when I said that industrial co-operation was better than com- 
petition. Of course I could not then foresee the tremendous results 
that have since followed, but after the system was properly started 
it proved itself so overwhelmingly that I have many times been 
dazed by the magnitude of it all. In fact, many years ago it got 
beyond my control. I could not stop. A change would have been 
followed by a panic that would have wrecked untold thousands. 

"But as this great responsibility grew, another ambition awoke 
— a greater ambition. I have not yet set the date for carrying it 
out. I am in good health and hope I may live a great many years 
longer, as these are the most important years in the realization of 
my dream. If I should die, the plan svill be carried out, but frankly 
I want to live to see the fruition of my greatest ambition. I have 
entrusted my secret hope^ and plans to no strangers, but I am going 
to show you. ' ' 

Mr. R. excused himself and went to another room, returning 
in a few moments with a document, which he handed to mo with a 
request that I read it. 

I did so. 

For fully ten minutes afterward I sat staring into vacancy and 
trying to fathom its entire meaning. Then with a glad and sincere 
smile, I arose and offered him my hand, which he grasped with a 
hearty pressure. 

"Thank you, Mr. R. ," was all that I could say. 

The magnitude of the issues involved in our conversation and 
the unexpected conclusion left me with no inclination for conversa- 
tion. I told my host that I would go, and again thanking him for 
his confidence, with another warm pressure of the hand, I mounted 
my air-ship and was soon cutting through the darkness to ray home. 

Of course I will respect Mr. R. 's confidence and not divulge his 
plans before he is ready to give them out. But really I am too 
dazed to talk about them, anyway. 

There are "men of destiny" in war, in politics, in finance. The 
greatest part of a great man is his heart. In the presence of one of 
these evidences of nature's extremes, the individual atom can only 
hope that the heart is right. 



Knight of the Twentieth Century. 

The Knight weighs 370 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
about the world punishing meanness. He fell heir to a small for- 
tune, and his dream was made real. 



BOSSING A BOSS. 

I voted the other day. As I was mechanically placing the 
crosses after the names in the column of the party with which I 
have been in harmony on general principles, skipping one man 
whose record I happened to know was bad, the absurdity of the 
political system in a great city impressed me with renewed force. 
Here I was with a great blanket sheet of names before me, voting 
for a lot of men I had never seen and had no means of truthful 
information about unless I made a business of politics and spent 
time and money in the effort to keep posted. And I suppose if I 
made a business of politics I would soon be as bad as the rest of 
them. 

The city man does not know his neighbor. He cannot know 
him. The conditions of city life make it utterly impossible for a 
man to have an extended acquaintance among the people who live 
in his vicinity unless he makes a business of it. Even in the rare 
cases where one has a business bringing him into acquaintanceship 
with his neighborhood it is not safe to mix politics and business. 
We belong to churches and societies, but usually these are located at 
a distance from the wards in which we vote, the men we meet there 
have interests foreign to our local political affairs, and practically 
all such societies discourage or prohibit the discussion of political 
matters among members. In fact, all the conditions of city life 
make it impossible for the individual to know much about the 
characters of candidates unless, like the saloon men and ward poll- 



BOSSING A BOSS. 113 

ticians, he makes it a business. Since there are few opportunities 
to get back the necessary expense from politics in a legitimate man- 
ner, of necessity a man who spends time and money in politics must 
get it back improperly. There are exceptions in a few men who are 
well-fixed financially and take an interest in politics purely from 
good motives, but they are exceedingly rare, and our system does 
not encourage them. 

The purchasable vote of a city is its controlling influence. This 
is because it can be handled as a unit, while the honest vote is not 
organized. One purchasable vote has greater weight in decision 
than ten honest votes. From the natural condition of political 
affairs, great questions divide the honest vote. The purchasable 
vote is not divided, but represents a balance of power between two 
factions representing a measure of decency upon the surface. The 
result is that the decisive vote is cast where those who control it 
can make a secret trade with the leaders of one of the opposing 
factions, and the leaders who are most unscrupulous are sure to win. 
This is nobody's fault. When this country broke away from mon- 
archy and set up a republic, it went to an extreme. In a monarchy, 
power lies with one man at the top. With a republic, power lies 
with the great mass of individuals and many of them are at the 
bottom. Perhaps there would be greater safety in a happy medium 
between these two extremes. Consistent effort has been made of 
late years to place restrictions around the right of suffrage that tend 
to eliminate part of the worst of the voters at the bottom. May the 
good work go on. There is much yet to be accomplished in that 
direction. 

However, I had no sooner left the booth than I decided to try to 
do something toward a reform in our electoral system, especially as 
it is applied in our cities. 

That same evening, while the jubilation of the irresponsible 
element was at its height over the victory against the law and order 
forces that day, I pushed my way through a drunken crowd to the 
office in the rear of a saloon that was owned by the leader of the 
vote-controlling forces in the most notoriously corrupt ward in the 
city. Good fortune befriended me, and I found the king of the 
floating vote, for once taking no part in the noisy carousal, but 
within sight and sound of the worst of it. With his feet on a desk, 
a big black cigar tilted upward, he was alone and deeply engrossed 



114 BOSSING A BOSS. 

in thought. 

"Well, how would you like a visit from the Knight of the Twen- 
tieth Century?" was ray greeting. 

"Not a blank bit," was the quick reply. "What in the dickens 
are yon going to do to me'?" 

"Nothing, nothing," I replied. "Just dropped in for a little 
chat. " 

"Yes, but your little chats are usually decidedly unpleasant for 
the other fellow. I am ready right now to beg off. I am not afraid 
of anything on the land or sea except you, but you are so ingenious 
in your methods that old satan himself would be outgeneraled. I 
know you would not dare to come here so openly if you did not have 
a trump card to play that will take the trick, so I acknowledge at 
once that I am beaten and promise anything you ask, and then 
some. ' ' 

"Well, you are very kind, but this time there will be nothing 
doing. I have trusted solely to an appeal to your good sense to give 
me a hearing. " 

"All right, but I won't make any foolish i:)asses. I am an un- 
resisting Quaker this time. I don't believe for a cent in war and 
carnage. I am at your mercy completely. Fire away and do any- 
thing you choose." 

"It is no news to you that our voting system is a lamentable 
failure in great cities, where it is impossible for the individual to 
know who and what he is voting for unless he makes politics a busi- 
ness — and if he makes politics a business of necessity he must also 
become corrupt. ' ' 

"Indeed, it's not,'' was his quick reply. "I was just thinking 
0? that very thing myself. You know^ m^ reputation and what I 
stand for. Well, I am sick of it all. I have been moping and 
growling in here all by myself while those maniacs out there have 
been howling over a great victory that means setting back real ben- 
efit to those very fellows more years than I dare to think. 

"You seem to be a pretty level-headed fellow," he continued, 
"and can appreciate my side of the question. We have a voting 
system. If I do not control the floating vote, someone else will. It 
is impossible for any one man to combine and control the intelligent 
voters. The sydtera is too big for any one man or set of men to do 
any good without a fundamental change, and who is big enough to 



BOSSING A BOSS. 115 

make it? The reputable voters are strangers to each other, anrl 
strangers they will always be because they live under the conditions 
of a great city. The saloon is a natural meeting place for voters, 
and these men can act together— and they do. I have given out in 
charity and quiet help to thousands of poor devils a big share of the 
money that has been gathered in, and have been satisfied that I was 
doing more good than many a man so situated, and if I do not con- 
trol this vote, another will. It is the system that is wrong. I am 
only a creature of the system, doing the best I know how." 

"I have put myself in your place," I said, "to an extent that I 
have realized fully the situation as you have presented it, and that 
is why I have come here with no intention of attempting anything 
except to have a talk with you. I do appreciate that you have done 
much good. As you say, the great harm is due to the system. But 
can nothing be done to change the system?" 

"Absolutely nothing that I can see. I have studied over the 
matter time after time. I tell you frankly that if I could do any- 
thing to put the deciding of political questions into the hands of 
the intelligent voters of this city, I would chuck the whole crowd 
that I have worked with all my life and come out as the rankest 
reformer you ever heard of. " 

"I am indeed rejoiced to hear that," I said. "I am a poor sort 
of politician, myself, and perhaps do not know all the odds against 
an attempt for a real change of a faulty political system, but how 
does this line of reasoning strike you: Admitting, as everyone 
does, that better government would come if the suffrage were more 
restricted, additional restrictions in the way of longer residence, 
the disfranchisement of criminals and the illiterate, and the regis- 
tration of all voters in a public and permanent manner that would 
make possible a criminal action for illegal registration on the part 
of any citizen at any time and not simply a possible prosecution for 
illegal voting that is now a usual after-election spasm that amounts 
to nothing. Raise the standard of the individual vote and thus 
make its value greater. Taen provide that all voters must divide 
themselves into squads of live, the selected fifth to have the entire 
responsibility of voting for himself and the other four. The indi- 
vidual voter would then only be called upon to choose from his 
acquaintances a man to represent him. In other words, instead of 
voting tor a lot of strangers to make laws for him for four years, he 



116 BOSSING A BOSS. 

would exercise the elective franchise nearer home by selecting a 
friend who from the nature of the value of the tive times multiplied 
franchise would be better qualitied to enquire into the personal 
characters and habits of the men he in turn must select as represen- 
tatives, and more easily work in harmony with other voters." 

"That don't look good to me," was the politician's reply. 
"There vt^ould be all sorts of trouble between the voters and the men 
they would represent." 

"Perhaps so," I said, "but we elect total strangers to positions 
calling for this same representative capacity, and if the voters could 
be convinced that it would result in better government for them 
to exercise the selecting power nearer to themselves, they oaght to 
be glad of the improvement. Certainly the honest voter has no vote 
in this city now except to offset another honest vote. The floating 
vote controlled by you decides every important matter." 

"That has been tried in other countries and has resulted in 
building up classes, the voters and the slaves. We are going to the 
other extreme. Even the last relic of that system, the election of 
United States senators, is fast going to a direct vote of the people. " 

"Weil," I replied, "I am not enthusiastic about any particular 
plan. I would like to see the conditions changed to give us a more 
intelligent voting in the selection of public servants, and a more 
strict accountability back down the line of men acting in a repre- 
.sentative capacity, especially in the cities.'- 

"I spe no hope," he replied. "If some plan were suggested, the 
powers in control would never permit a change. As you and I know, 
there is a gigantic financial influence in the east that sends its 
orders to me and to every other dominating politician in the country. 
They are satisfied." 

"Ah, but there is the real secret of this interview. When some 
really practicable plan is brought forward that will accomplish this 
result and raise the elective standard of this country, the one great 
power that now controls political affairs is ready to instruct its 
pages and office boys to pass the law." 

"What's that you say? Are you dreaming?" 

"Not a dream, not a dream, my friend. If the voting intelli- 
gence of this country were on a better basis, great things would 
follow quickly. But suppose we had government ownership of the 
railroads, of the express, telephone and telegraph, of the banks and 



BOSSING A BOSS. 117 

insurance companies, of the steel trust and similar enterprises, what 
a vast corruiDtion would exist under our present s^'stem ! No, no, 
my friend. One important thing comes tirst, and that is the elimi- 
nation of the corrupt voter, the ignorant voter, the repeating voter, 
and the equally dangerous, the indifferent or uninformed voter." 

"Well, I have such profound respect for you that I believe you 
would not tell me this great thing if it were not so. It must be so. 
I am glad. I am glad. What can I do?" 

"For the present, work on these lines, being content to let 
American genius work out the best plan." 

"I'll do it! I'll do it! From this day forth, Jimmie will be a 
reformer from Reformerville. Watch my smoke. No pet scheme. 
Just hit a head wherever it shows up. I'm with you to the iinish !" 

Thanking the great boss for his enthusiastic promise, and telling 
him I would watch his efforts with much friendly interest, I shook 
hands with a cordial good-night. 

As I left his otKce, I saw him swing around again and plant his 
feet on the desk, and the last glimpse was of that cigar tilted at 
even a greater angle than before. 

A pool of water may look black and dangerous in the semi- 
darkness, but clearer vision under the bright sunlight reveals 
sparkling purity. It all depends on the light when looking at people 
and things. Even a political boss of a great city may have morals 
and character if you can see through the coarse exterior to the real 
man. 



Kniglit of the Twentletii Century. 

The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
about the world punishing meanness. He fell heir to a small for- 
tune, and his dream was made real. 



A SUPREME INJUSTICE. 

A few daj-s ago when I was lazily finishing my Sunday paper, 
with no particular object, and really in a hazy sort of way, being 
more than half asleep, I glanced over a column of reports of cases 
recently decided by the supreme court of the United States. Hardly 
conscious that I was reading, I noticed that in one of the cases the 
court had again decided a point against the government control of 
railroad rates by confirming once more and referring to the old, old 
decision that the constitution prohibits the confiscation of private 
property, and that reduction of rates below what would leave a 
"reasonable" interest on the value of the property amounted to a 
confiscation. Well, I sat up pretty promptly and rubbed the sleep 
out of my eyes. 

The human mind is so constituted that it can be engrossed in 
but one idea at a time. There is a sub-consciousness that is mean- 
while doing more or less threshing around, but in a general way it 
requires some outward affair to divert the mind to the consideration 
of an idea, no matter how much the individual's interest may 
normally be involved. 

For many years I have been indignant over this ancient con- 
struction of words that by the wildest flights of fancy can never be 
made to mean what the supreme court has said they mean unless 
one is determined to call black white because there is a selfish 
motive for it. It is possible for the supreme court of the land to 
call black white, and if they so decide, white it is. I was not 



A SUPREME INJUSTICE. 119 

present when the constitution of the United States was adopted, that 
immortal instrument tliat guarantees to every man the right of life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the right to bear arms 
(except when some village council says he may not.) But in those 
days it was a question of a monarchy vs. constitutional government. 
Before that time it had been the cheerful habit of monarchs to 
confiscate an enemy's property and give it to a friend. That was 
confiscation. The king took it, bodily, wholly, with never a "by 
your leave." He did not regulate the man or abuses. He just con- 
fiscated everything in sight. Well, that is what the framers of the 
constitution meant. They did not want a king or president to do 
such a naughty thing. 

They could not look forward to the time when one man might 
confiscate the whole government, but actually legislated against 
what had been a grievous wrong in the i^ast, and so far as the evi- 
dence goes, pretty effectually stopped it. But the theory that these 
words mean that this great government can have no power of regu- 
lation of charges of corporations that have been created by the gov- 
ernment and given special franchises and powers, is such a monstrous 
construction of the words that no sane mind could conceive of it 
unless some devilish ingenuity should desire it for selfish purposes. 
And so it was construed. It has stood as the bulwark of defense 
against all sensible and proper legislation of corporations. It is the 
final ditch of all legislation, and the legislation dies in the ditch. 
It is monstrc)US, bat it is there. 

The sacredne.ss of this definition of "confiscation" applies only 
to the effort to regulate big corporations. Two negroes "shooting 
craps" may have their dice confiscated, a man carrying a revolver 
may have it confiscated and destroyed, an importer who has over- 
looked paying a duty may have thousands of dollars of property 
confiscated, real estate may bo confiscated and sold for taxes. All 
these in defiance of a possible definition of the word in the constitu- 
tion, yet sustained time and time again by the supreme court. But 
vv'hen it comes to regulating the rates of railroads that would squeeze 
out a few barrels of watered stock and still leave enormous interest 
on the actual investment, the supreme court, with eyes looking 
back to that old-time decision, says it must not, it cannot be. 

Well, this item that I happened to read called my attention to 
the fact that this decision "precedent" was the worst crime ever 



120 A SUPREME INJUSTICE. 

perpetrated on the American people, and straight-way I set about 
to right this greatest ot all wrongs. 

I did not know how I was going to do it, but like the Knights 
of old I headed toward Washington and trusting to the Providence 
of true knighthood and the strength of my good right arm, I started 
in quest of the adventure. 

Arriving in Washington, I learned that one Judge X—, affiliated 
in a hundred ways by social and marriage ties with the most corrupt 
of our big corporations, was more than anyone else responsible for 
keeping life in this relic of old-time corruption, and I determined 
to give him a taste of what I use in the treatment of moral disease. 

I learned that it was the judge's habit to take daily exercise by 
taking walks about the spacious grounds that surround his beautiful 
mansion, grounds thickly studded with shade trees and with more 
than a mile of lovely walks. It was his custom to walk for an hour 
in the early evening, no doubt in silent meditation arriving at 
many conclusions upon important law points that have given him 
the reputation of being a great and learned judge. And he was. 
Except for a bias in favor of corporations that had been fostered by 
political and social conditions and by the army of corporation hire- 
lings in the capital and out of it, who had made social matters easy 
for the judge, his family and friends when matters were running 
smoothly for corporate interests. They never bribed the judge. Oh, 
no. Nothing less than a consulship for a second cousin would have 
any effect on him. 

I repaired to the judge's home in the gloaming, and as I hoped, 
found him pacing peacefully along the pathways of peace, sur- 
rounded with his own vine and fig trees and the perfect picture of 
virtuous content. 

I passed the gardener, a semi -lookout for possible intruders. 
My dress and appearance evidently would i^ass muster in high judi- 
cial circles. Stepping boldly up to the great justice, I reached out 
my hand and said : 

"Good evening, good evening. It is a pleasure, indeed, to see 
you. ' * 

Thinking, no doubt, that I was an acquaintance he had for the 
instant forgotten, the judge shook hands warmly, saying : 

"I am pleased to meet you." Looking intently at me, with a 
puzzled face, desiring to be courteous and evidently embarrassed 



A SUPREME INJUSTICE. 121 

at his failure to remember me, he was forced to add: "But I am 
ashamed to acknowledge that I cannot recall your name. I have 
such a poor memory for names and faces, anyway." 

I held the judge's hand during this brief interval, and his small 
hand was still clasped by my brawny fingers as I still held it more 
tightly and moved toward a rustic seat that was at the side of the 
walk. 

"Keep quiet. Judge. I am a very powerful man beside you and 
can harm you if you make an outcry, but I don't v^'ant to, and will 
not if you will sit down here and talk to me." 

The judge is a pretty wise fellow, and evidently thinking no 
great harm could come to him so near his own home and with people 
moving about, he sat down, with my ponderous bulk alongside, still 
holding his hand. 

"You have never seen me before, " I said, "but I have come 
here to have a serious talk with you." 

"Well, let gt> my hand. I don't object to your talking." 

"No, I will nut let go of your hand at any time during this 
interview. " 

The judge tried to wriggle his hand from my grasp, but I gave 
it a squeeze that nearly crushed the bones and made him cry out 
with pain. 

"Now," I said, "I am going to hold hands with you during 
this entire interview and if j'ou don't Vv'ant some more of the same 
only more so, you will be quiet." 

He did not want any more of the same, until the gardener came 
near, when a decided pressure quickly cured his inclination to cry 
for help. Later he was called to dinner, but a positive pressure was 
put on and he sent word that he would have to be excused for an 
hour. 

"Now, Judge, you know that the construction the supreme 
court gave many years ago to the constitutional prohibition of con- 
liscation of an individual's property, as an excuse for defending rail- 
roads from adverse legislation, was the greatest outrage ever perpe- 
trated under the judicial ermine, do you not?" 

He said nothing. I squeezed his hand. Still he said nothing. 
I squeezed his hand harder. Still he said nothing but "Ouch!" I 
squeezed his hand till I thought every bone would be crushed. 

"Yes! Yes! Oh, yes ! Of course I do." 



122 A SUPREME INJUSTICE. 

"That's better," I said. "You know that monstrous play upon 
the meaning of words was made at the command of interested cor- 
porations?" 

He said nothing. Another squeeze. 

' ' Yes ! Yes ! Of course. "' 

"Well, I want you to see that the supreme court reverses itself 
on that decision. " 

"Not even a grunt. Harder squeeze. Not a woi'd. Harder 
squeeze, and as he writhed with pain, he almost shouted, "I can't. 
I can't. ■' 

"Why can't you?'' 

"Well, I can't. It would mean reversal of my whole life's con- 
duct. It would ostracise me and my family." 

"You agree that it should be done for the best interests of the 
people?" 

It only required a gentle pressure this time. 

"Yes, yes, oh yes. That is plain enough, if you must make me 
say it." 

"Well, you have said it, now keep on talking." 

He didnt want to. Another squeeze. 

"It is too much to expect from any one man, anyway. I did 
not decide this matter originally. In my official capacity I am ex- 
pected to follow precedent. A decision having once been made, it 
becomes the supreme law of the land. The judges who make it may 
die, but the decision remains, whether it is good law or justice. 
We frequently, because of the new conditions that are constantly 
presenting new phases of old questions, give different shadings to 
old decisions, but to completely reverse one of the most imijortant 
decisions of the past would be revolutionary." 

"That is true, but new conditions have C3me that make such 
revolutionary action imperative. The gjvernment must control the 
corporations instead of the corporations controlling the government. 
You can, with your prestige and position, correct this great evil.'' 

"You have me where I cannot help myself, '' he said, "and per- 
haps the best way out of it is to talk frankly. You are right. Ev- 
ery man who is in the least on the inside of big affairs knows that 
thiij single decision has done more for corrupt combinations of capi- 
tal than any other one thing. It is wrong. I acknowledge that in 
my real thoughts I know it to bo wrong. But what can I do? I am 



A SUPREME INJUSTICE. 123 

only a small wheel in a great machine. If I do not ilo the bidding 
of the corporations, someone else would, and I would be banished 
and disgraced. I cannot do this thing that you ask. My son is 
about to be given special preferment, my daughter is engaged to be 
married, and disgrace in my social circle would destroy my wife's 
happiness. " 

"I sympathize with yon, " I said, "but the times demand a 
sacrifice. The people need it. The good of the greatest number 
demands it. Will you make it?" 

No reply. Another squeeze. Then the great jurist, the digni- 
fied gentleman, the cultured crest of the intellectual wave of all this 
great country, said: "Gosh, how that hurts !" 

"Yes, I will, ■' he said. "It is humiliating to make this promise 
to you under these circumstances. It is true, however, that I have 
mentally decided many times in the past to do this thing. I recog- 
nized all that it meant. You have told me nothing new. I am 
more in earnest in this matter than you are, perhaps, in my real 
opinions, but my surroxmdings held me in check. My conscience 
and my judgment have long cried out. Bat I have never had the 
moral courage to act. I will pay this tribute to the strength of 
your wrist — it has given me the moral courage. This is not tem- 
porizing with you. I believe that you would not do any more than 
you have done, anyway. You are a gentleman, and have not treated 
me more roughly than you thought was necessary." 

"I believe you," I said, loosening that poor, abused hand, "and 
if you will give me your other hand I will gladly shake bands with 
you, and I won't squeeze it." 

He did so. 

"I forget the humiliation of this physical treatment in the 
thought that the mind, after all, is subservient to the body,'' lie 
said. "My physical comfort has been ministered to in a thousand 
ways by the convenience of taking a wrong position on this great 
question, while my conscience has cried aloud. It is fitting that the 
discomfort that I have tried to evade has found me through the 
general law of physical punishment for mental error. If my own 
case had come before me as a judge, I would have made the penalty 
more severe. 

"I tell you again, that I will do everything I possibly can to 
right this great wrong, and my heart will be in the work." 



124 A SUPREME INJUSTICE. 

"May the true light of a clear conscience guide and prosper you 
in your undertaking," I replied. "I will now leave you, rejoicing 
at the happy conclusion of this painful interview. The carrying out 
of this night's determation is left entirely to you, in your own good 
time and in your own way. Good-bye. I can truly say that I am 
glad to have met you. " 

"Good-bye. and I can truly say that after this hand quits hurt- 
ing I will be very glad that I have met you." 

Sometimes squeezing hands results in marriage and families, 
and the building up of a great nation. Sometimes, perhaps, it is a 
good thing for a supreme judge to have his hand squeezed. 



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